If  A 


. 


THE  MARNE 


THE  MARNE 


BY 

EDITH  WHARTON 

AUTHOR  OF 
"THE  REEF,"  "SUMMER,"  "THE  HOUSE  OF  MIRTH" 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 

CAPTAIN  RONALD  SIMMONS,  A.E.F. 
WHO  DIED  FOR  FRANCE 

AUGUST  12,  1918. 


388132 


THE  MARNE 
CHAPTER  I 

EVER  since  the  age  of  six  Troy  Bel- 
knap  of  New  York  had  embarked  for 
Europe  every  June  on  the  fastest  steamer 
of  one  of  the  most  expensive  lines. 

With  his  family  he  had  descended  at 
the  dock  from  a  large  noiseless  motor, 
had  kissed  his  father  good-bye,  turned 
back  to  shake  hands  with  the  chauffeur 
(a  particular  friend),  and  trotted  up  the 
gang-plank  behind  his  mother's  maid, 
while  one  welcoming  steward  captured 
Mrs.  Belknap's  bag  and  another  led 
away  her  miniature  French  bull-dog — 
also  a  particular  friend  of  Troy's. 

From  that  hour  all  had  been  delight. 
For  six  golden  days  Troy  had  ranged  the 
decks,  splashed  in  the  blue  salt  water 


'HE  MARNE 


brimming  his  huge  porcelain  tub,  lunched 
and  dined  with  the  grown-ups  in  the  Ritz 
restaurant,  and  swaggered  about  in  front 
of  the  children  who  had  never  crossed 
before  and  didn't  know  the  stewards,  or 
the  purser,  or  the  captain's  cat,  or  on 
which  deck  you  might  exercise  your  dog, 
or  how  to  induce  the  officer  on  the  watch 
to  let  you  scramble  up  for  a  minute  to  the 
bridge.  Then,  when  these  joys  began  to 
pall,  he  had  lost  himself  in  others  deeper 
and  dearer.  Another  of  his  cronies,  the 
library  steward,  had  unlocked  the  book 
case  doors  for  him,  and  buried  for  hours 
in  the  depths  of  a  huge  library  armchair 
W  (there  weren't  any  to  compare  with  it 
on  land)  he  had  ranged  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  several  literatures. 
These  six  days  of  bliss  would  have 
been  too  soon  over  if  they  had  not  been 
the  mere  prelude  to  intenser  sensations. 
On  the  seventh  morning — generally  at 
Cherbourg — Troy  Belknap  followed  his 

[2] 


THE  MARNE 


mother,  and  his  mother's  maid,  and  the 
French  bull,  up  the  gang-plank  and  into 
another  large  noiseless  motor,  with  an 
other  chauffeur  (French  this  one)  to 
whom  he  was  also  deeply  attached,  and 
who  sat  grinning  and  cap-touching  at  the 
wheel.  And  then — in  a  few  minutes,  so 
swiftly  and  smilingly  was  the  way  of  Mrs. 
Belknap  smoothed — the  noiseless  motor 
was  off,  and  they  were  rushing  eastward 
through  the  orchards  of  Normandy. 

The  little  boy's  happiness  would  have 
been  complete  if  there  had  been  more 
time  to  give  to  the  beautiful  things  that 
flew  past  them;  thatched  villages  with 
square-towered  churches  in  hollows  of  the 
deep  green  country,  or  grey  shining  towns 
above  rivers  on  which  cathedrals  seemed 
to  be  moored  like  ships ;  miles  and  miles 
of  field  and  hedge  and  park  falling  away 
from  high  terraced  houses,  and  little  em 
broidered  stone  manors  reflected  in  reed- 
grown  moats  under  ancient  trees. 

[3] 


THE  MARNE 


Unfortunately  Mrs.  Belknap  always 
had  pressing  engagements  in  Paris.  She 
had  made  appointments  beforehand  with 
all  her  dressmakers,  and,  as  Troy  was 
well  aware,  it  was  impossible,  at  the 
height  of  the  season,  to  break  such  en 
gagements  without  losing  one's  turn,  and 
having  to  wait  weeks  and  weeks  to  get  a 
lot  of  nasty  rags  that  one  had  seen,  by 
that  time,  on  the  back  of  every  other 
woman  in  the  place. 

Luckily,  however,  even  Mrs.  Belknap 
had  to  eat;  and  during  the  halts  in  the 
shining  towns,  where  a  succulent  lunch 
eon  was  served  in  a  garden  or  a  flowery 
court-yard,  Troy  had  time  (as  he  grew 
bigger)  to  slip  away  alone,  and  climb  to 
the  height  where  the  cathedral  stood,  or 
at  least  to  loiter  and  gaze  in  the  narrow 
crooked  streets,  between  gabled  cross- 
beamed  houses,  each  more  picture-book- 
ishly  quaint  than  its  neighbours. 

In  Paris,  in  their  brightly-lit  and  be- 

[4] 


THE  MARNE 


flowered  hotel  drawing-room,  he  was  wel 
comed  by  Madame  Lebuc,  an  oJrl  French 
lady  smelling  of  crape,  who  gave  him 
lessons  and  took  him  and  the  bull-dog 
for  walks,  and  who,  as  he  grew  older, 
was  supplemented,  and  then  replaced,  by 
an  ugly  vehement  young  tutor,  of  half- 
English  descent,  whose  companionship 
opened  fresh  fields  and  pastures  to  Troy's 
dawning  imagination. 

Then  in  July — always  at  the  same  date 
— Mr.  Belknap  was  deposited  at  the 
door  by  the  noiseless  motor,  which  had 
been  down  to  Havre  to  fetch  him;  and 
a  few  days  later  they  all  got  into  it,  and 
while  Madame  Lebuc  (pressing  a  packet 
of  chocolates  into  her  pupil's  hand) 
waved  a  damp  farewell  from  the  door 
way,  the  Pegasus  motor  flew  up  the 
Champs  Elysees,  devoured  the  leafy 
alleys  of  the  Bois,  and  soared  away  to 
new  horizons. 

Most  often  they  were  mountain  hori- 

[5] 


THE  MARNE 


zons,  for  the  tour  invariably  ended  in 
the  Swiss  Alps.  But  there  always  seemed 
to  be  new  ways  (looked  out  by  Mr.  Bel- 
knap  on  the  map)  of  reaching  their 
destination;  ways  lovelier,  more  winding, 
more  wonderful,  that  took  in  vast  sweep 
ing  visions  of  France  from  the  Seine  to 
the  Rhone.  And  when  Troy  grew  older 
the  vehement  young  tutor  went  with 
them;  and  once  they  all  stopped  and 
lunched  at  his  father's  house,  on  the  edge 
of  a  gabled  village  in  the  Argonne,  with 
a  view  stretching  away  for  miles  toward 
the  Vosges  and  Alsace.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Belknap  were  very  kind  people,  and  it 
would  never  have  occurred  to  them  to 
refuse  M.  Gantier's  invitation  to  lunch 
with  his  family;  but  they  had  no  idea  of 
the  emotions  stirred  in  their  son's  eager 
bosom  by  what  seemed  to  them  merely 
a  rather  inconvenient  deviation  from 
their  course.  Troy  himself  was  hardly 
aware  of  these  emotions  at  the  time, 
[6] 


THE  MARNE 


though  his  hungry  interest  in  life  always 
made  him  welcome  the  least  deflection 
from  the  expected.  He  had  simply 
thought  what  kind  jolly  people  the 
Gantiers  were,  and  what  fun  it  was  to 
be  inside  one  of  the  quaint  stone  houses, 
with  small  window-panes  looking  on  old 
box-gardens  that  he  was  always  being 
whisked  past  in  the  motor.  But  later  he 
was  to  re-live  that  day  in  all  its  homely 
details. 


CHAPTER  II 

THEY  were  at  St.  Moritz — as  usual. 
He  and  M.  Gantier  had  been  for  a  tramp 
through  the  Val  Suvretta,  and,  com 
ing  home  late,  were  rushing  into  their 
evening  clothes  to  join  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Belknap  at  dinner  (as  they  did  now  reg 
ularly,  Troy  having  reached  the  virile 
age  of  fifteen,  and  having  to  justify 
the  possession  of  a  smoking-jacket  and 
patent  leather  shoes) .  He  was  just  out  of 
his  bath,  and  smothered  in  towels,  when 
the  tutor  opened  the  door  and  thrust  in 
a  newspaper. 

"There  will  be  war — I  must  leave  to 


morrow." 


Troy  dropped  the  towels. 

War!  War!  War  against  his  beauti 
ful  France!  And  this  young  man,  his 
dearest  friend  and  companion,  was  to  be 

[8] 


THE  MARNE 


torn  from  him  suddenly,  senselessly,  torn 
from  their  endless  talks,  their  long  walks 
in  the  mountains,  their  elaborately 
planned  courses  of  study — archaeology, 
French  literature,  mediaeval  philosophy, 
the  Divine  Comedy,  and  vistas  and  vistas 
beyond — to  be  torn  from  all  this,  and  to 
disappear  from  Troy  Belknap's  life  into 
the  black  gulf  of  this  unfathomable  thing 
called  War,  that  seemed  suddenly  to  have 
escaped  out  of  the  history  books  like  a 
dangerous  lunatic  escaping  from  the 
asylum  in  which  he  was  supposed  to  be 
securely  confined ! 

Troy  Belknap  was  stunned. 

He  pulled  himself  together  to  bid  a 
valiant  farewell  to  M.  Gantier  (the  air 
was  full  of  the  "Marseillaise"  and 
"Sambre-et-Meuse")  and  everybody 
knew  the  Russians  would  be  in  Berlin  in 
six  weeks;  but,  once  his  tutor  was  gone, 
the  mystery  and  horror  again  closed  in 
on  him. 

[9] 


THE  MARNE 


France,  his  France,  attacked,  invaded, 
outraged — and  he,  a  poor  helpless  Ameri 
can  boy,  who  adored  her,  and  could  do 
nothing  for  her — not  even  cry,  as  a  girl 
might!  It  was  bitter. 

His  parents,  too,  were  dreadfully  up 
set;  and  so  were  all  their  friends.  But 
what  chiefly  troubled  them  was  that  they 
could  get  no  money,  no  seats  in  the  trains, 
no  assurance  that  the  Swiss  frontier 
would  not  be  closed  before  they  could 
cross  the  border.  These  preoccupations 
seemed  to  leave  them,  for  the  moment, 
no  time  to  think  about  France ;  and  Troy, 
during  those  first  days,  felt  as  if  he  were 
an  infant  Winkelried  with  all  the  shafts 
of  the  world's  woe  gathered  into  his  in 
adequate  breast. 

For  France  was  his  holiday  world,  the 
world  of  his  fancy  and  imagination,  a 
great  traceried  window  opening  on  the 
universe.  And  now,  in  the  hour  of  her 
need,  all  he  heard  about  him  was  the 

[TO] 


THE  MARNE 


worried  talk  of  people  planning  to  desert 
her! 

Safe  in  Paris,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Belknap 
regained  their  balance.  Having  secured 
(for  a  sum  that  would  have  fitted  up 
an  ambulance)  their  passages  on  a 
steamer  sailing  from  England,  they  could 
at  length  look  about  them,  feel  sorry, 
and  subscribe  to  all  the  budding  war 
charities.  They  even  remembered  poor 
Madame  Lebuc,  stranded  by  the  flight  of 
all  her  pupils,  and  found  a  job  for  her 
in  a  refugee  bureau. 

Then,  just  as  they  were  about  to  sail, 
Mrs.  Belknap  had  a  touch  of  pneumonia, 
and  was  obliged  to  postpone  her  depart 
ure;  while  Mr.  Belknap,  jamming  his 
possessions  into  a  single  suit  case,  dashed 
down  to  Spain  to  take  ship  at  Malaga. 
The  turn  affairs  were  taking  made  it  ad 
visable  for  him  to  get  back  as  quickly  as 
possible,  and  his  wife  and  son  were  to 
follow  from  England  in  a  month. 


THE  MARNE 


All  the  while  there  came  no  news  of 
M.  Gantier.  He  had  rejoined  his  depot 
at  once,  and  Troy  had  had  a  post-card 
from  him,  dated  the  sixth  of  August,  and 
saying  that  he  was  leaving  for  the  front. 
After  that,  silence. 

Troy,  poring  over  the  morning  papers, 
and  slipping  out  alone  to  watch  for  the 
noon  communiques  in  the  windows  of  the 
Paris  Herald,  read  of  the  rash  French 
advance  in  Alsace,  and  the  enemy's  re 
taliatory  descent  on  the  region  the  Bel- 
knaps  had  so  often  sped  over.  And  one 
day,  among  the  names  of  the  ruined 
villages,  he  lit  on  that  of  the  little  town 
where  they  had  all  lunched  with  the 
Gantiers.  He  saw  the  box-garden  with 
the  hornbeam  arbour  where  they  had 
gone  to  drink  coffee,  old  M.  Gantier  cere 
moniously  leading  the  way  with  Mrs. 
Belknap;  he  saw  Mme.  Gantier,  lame 
and  stout,  hobbling  after  with  Mr.  Bel- 
knap  ;  a  little  old  aunt  with  bobbing  curls; 

[12] 


THE  MARNE 


the  round-faced  Gantier  girl,  shy  and 
rosy;  an  incredibly  dried  and  smoked  and 
aged  grandfather,  with  Voltairean  eyes 
and  sly  snuff-taking  gestures;  and  his 
own  friend,  the  eldest  of  the  four  broth 
ers.  He  saw  all  these  modest  beaming 
people  grouped  about  Mme.  Gander's 
coffee,  and  Papa  Gander's  best  bottle  of 
"Fine";  he  smelt  the  lime-blossoms  and 
box,  he  heard  the  bees  in  the  lavender, 
he  looked  out  on  the  rich  fields  and 
woods  and  the  blue  hills  bathed  in  sum 
mer  light.  And  he  read:  "Not  a  house 
is  standing.  The  cure  has  been  shot.  A 
number  of  old  people  were  burnt  in  the 
hospice.  The  mayor  and  five  of  the 
principal  inhabitants  have  been  taken  to 
Germany  as  hostages." 

The  year  before  the  war,  he  remem 
bered,  old  M.  Gantier  was  mayor! 

He  wrote  and  wrote,  after  that,  to  his 
tutor;  wrote  to  his  depot,  to  his  Paris 
address,  to  the  ruin ,  that  had  been  his 

[13] 


THE  MARNE 


home;  but  had  no  answer.  And  finally, 
amid  the  crowding  horrors  of  that  dread 
August,  he  forgot  even  M.  Gantier,  and 
M.  Gander's  family,  forgot  everything 
but  the  spectacle  of  the  allied  armies 
swept  back  from  Liege,  from  Charleroi, 
from  Mons,  from  Laon,  and  the  hosts 
of  evil  surging  nearer  and  ever  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  France. 

His  father,  with  whom  he  might  have 
talked,  was  gone;  and  Troy  could  not 
talk  to  his  mother.  Not  that  Mrs.  Bel- 
knap  was  not  kind  and  full  of  sympathy: 
as  fast  as  the  bank  at  home  cabled  funds 
she  poured  them  out  for  war-charities. 
But  most  of  her  time  was  spent  in  agi 
tated  conference  with  her  compatriots, 
and  Troy  could  not  bear  to  listen  to  their 
endlessly  reiterated  tales  of  flight  from 
Nauheim  or  Baden  or  Brussels,  their 
difficulties  in  drawing  money,  hiring 
motors,  bribing  hotel-porters,  battling  for 
seats  in  trains,  recovering  lost  luggage, 

[14] 


THE  MARNE 


cabling  for  funds,  and  their  general 
tendency  to  regard  the  war  as  a  mere 
background  to  their  personal  grievances. 

uYou  were  exceedingly  rude  to  Mrs. 
Sampson,  Troy,"  his  mother  said  to  him, 
surprised  one  day  by  an  explosion  of  tem 
per.  "It  is  natural  she  should  be  nervous 
at  not  being  able  to  get  staterooms;  and 
she  had  just  given  me  five  hundred  dol 
lars  for  the  American  Ambulance." 

"Giving  money's  no  use,"  the  boy 
growled,  obscurely  irritated;  and  when 
Mrs.  Belknap  exclaimed:  "Why,  Troy, 
how  callous — with  all  this  suffering!"  he 
slunk  out  without  answering,  and  went 
downstairs  to  lie  in  wait  for  the  evening 
papers. 

The  misery  of  feeling  himself  a  big 
boy,  long-limbed,  strong-limbed,  old 
enough  for  evening  clothes,  champagne, 
the  classics,  biology  and  views  on  interna 
tional  politics,  and  yet  able  to  do  nothing 
but  hang  about  marble  hotels  and  pore 

[15] 


THE  MARNE 


over  newspapers,  while  rank  on  rank,  and 
regiment  on  regiment,  the  youth  of 
France  and  England  swung  through  the 
dazed  streets  and  packed  the  endless 
trains — the  misery  of  this  was  so  great  to 
Troy  that  he  became,  as  the  days  dragged 
on,  more  than  ever  what  his  mother 
called  "callous,"  sullen,  humiliated,  re 
sentful  at  being  associated  with  all  the 
rich  Americans  flying  from  France. 

At  last  the  turn  of  the  Belknaps  came 
too ;  but,  as  they  were  preparing  to  start, 
news  came  that  the  German  army  was 
at  Lille,  and  civilian  travel  to  England  in 
terrupted. 

It  was  the  fateful  week,  and  every 
name  in  the  bulletins — Amiens,  Com- 
piegne,  Rheims,  Meaux,  Senlis — evoked 
in  Troy  Belknap's  tortured  imagination 
visions  of  ancient  beauty  and  stability. 
He  had  done  that  bit  of  France  alone 
with  M.  Gantier  the  year  before,  while 
Mrs.  Belknap  waited  in  Paris  for  be- 

[16] 


THE  MARNE 


lated  clothes;  and  the  thought  of  the 
great  stretch  of  desolation  spreading  and 
spreading  like  a  leprosy  over  a  land  so 
full  of  the  poetry  of  the  past,  and  so  rich 
in  a  happy  prosperous  present,  was 
added  to  the  crueller  vision  of  the  tragic 
and  magnificent  armies  that  had  failed  to 
defend  it. 

Troy,  as  soon  as  he  was  reassured 
about  his  mother's  health,  had  secretly 
rejoiced  at  the  accident  which  had  kept 
them  in  France.  But  now  his  joy  was 
turned  to  bitterness.  Mrs.  Belknap,  in 
her  horrified  surprise  at  seeing  her  plans 
again  obstructed,  lost  all  sense  of  the 
impending  calamity  except  as  it  affected 
her  safety  and  Troy's,  and  joined  in  the 
indignant  chorus  of  compatriots  stranded 
in  Paris,  and  obscurely  convinced  that 
France  ought  to  have  seen  them  safely 
home  before  turning  her  attention  to  the 
invader. 

"Of  course  I  don't  pretend  to  be  a 

[17] 


THE  MARNE 


strategist,"  whimpering  or  wrathful 
ladies  used  to  declare,  their  jewel-boxes 
clutched  in  one  hand,  their  passports  in 
the  other,  "but  one  can't  help  feeling  that 
if  only  the  French  government  had  told 
our  Ambassador  in  time  trains  might 
have  been  provided  ..." 

"Or  why  couldn't  Germany  have  let 
our  government  know?  After  all, 
Germany  has  no  grievance  against 
America  .  .  ." 

"And  we've  really  spent  enough 
money  in  Europe  for  some  consideration 
to  be  shown  us  .  .  . "  the  woeful  chorus 
went  on. 

The  choristers  were  all  good  and 
kindly  persons,  shaken  out  of  the  rut  of 
right  feeling  by  the  first  real  fright  of 
their  lives.  But  Troy  was  too  young  to 
understand  this,  and  to  foresee  that,  once 
in  safety,  they  would  become  the  passion 
ate  advocates  of  France,  all  the  more 
fervent  in  their  championship  because  of 

[18] 


THE  MARNE 


their  reluctant  participation  in  her  peril. 
("What  did  I  do?— Why,  I  just  simply 
stayed  in  Paris.  .  .  Not  to  run  away 
was  the  only  thing  one  could  do  to  show 
one's  sympathy,"  he  heard  one  of  the 
passport-clutchers  declare,  a  year  later,  in 
a  New  York  drawing-room.) 

Troy,  from  the  height  of  his  youthful 
indignation,  regarded  them  all  as  heart 
less  egoists,  and  fled  away  into  the  streets 
from  the  sound  of  their  lamentations. 

But  in  the  streets  was  fresh  food  for 
misery;  for  every  day  the  once  empty 
vistas  were  filled  with  trains  of  farm- 
wagons,  drawn  by  slow  country  horses, 
and  heaped  with  furniture  and  household 
utensils;  and  beside  the  carts  walked 
lines  of  haggard  people,  old  men  and 
women  with  vacant  faces,  mothers  hug 
ging  hungry  babies,  and  children  limping 
after  them  with  heavy  bundles.  The 
fugitives  of  the  Marne  were  pouring  into 
Paris. 

[19] 


THE  MARNE 


Troy  dashed  into  the  nearest  shops, 
bought  them  cakes  and  fruit,  followed 
them  to  the  big  hippodrome  where  they 
were  engulphed  in  the  dusty  arena,  and 
finally,  in  despair  at  his  inability  to  do 
more  than  gape  and  pity,  tried  to  avoid 
the  streets  they  followed  on  their  way 
into  Paris  from  St.  Denis  and  Vin- 
cennes. 

Then  one  day,  in  the  sunny  desert  of 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  he  came  on  a 
more  cheering  sight.  A  motley  band  of 
civilians,  young,  middle-aged  and  even 
gray-headed,  were  shambling  along  to 
gether,  badged  and  beribboned,  in  the 
direction  of  the  Invalides;  and  above 
them  floated  the  American  flag.  Troy 
flew  after  it,  and  caught  up  with  the  last 
marchers. 

"Where  are  we  going?  .  .  .  Foreign 
Legion,"  an  olive-faced  "dago"  answered 
joyously  in  broken  American.  "All 

[20] 


THE  MARNE 


'nited  States  citizens.  .  .  Come  and  join 
up,  sonnie  .  .  ."  And  for  one  mad 
moment  Troy  thought  of  risking  the 
adventure. 

But  he  was  too  visibly  only  a  school-boy 
still;  and  with  tears  of  envy  in  his  smart 
ing  eyes  he  stood,  small  and  useless,  on 
the  pavement,  and  watched  the  heteroge 
neous  band  under  the  beloved  flag  disap 
pearing  in  the  doorway  of  the  registration 
office. 

When  he  got  back  to  his  mother's 
drawing-room  the  tea-table  was  still  sur 
rounded,  and  a  lady  was  saying:  "I've 
offered  anything  for  a  special  train,  but 
they  won't  listen  ..."  and  another,  in 
a  stricken  whisper:  "If  they  do  come, 
what  do  you  mean  to  do  about  your 
pearls?" 


[21] 


CHAPTER  III 

THEN  came  the  Marne,  and  suddenly 
the  foreigners  caught  in  Paris  by  the 
German  advance  became  heroes  —  or 
mostly  heroines — who  had  stayed  there 
to  reassure  their  beloved  city  in  her  hour 
of  need. 

"We  all  owe  so  much  to  Paris,"  mur 
mured  Mrs.  Belknap,  in  lovely  conva 
lescent  clothes,  from  her  sofa-corner. 
"I'm  sure  we  can  none  of  us  ever  cease 
to  be  thankful  for  this  chance  of  show 
ing  it  .  .  ." 

She  had  sold  her  staterooms  to  a  com 
patriot  who  happened  to  be  in  England, 
and  was  now  cabling  home  to  suggest  to 
Mr.  Belknap  that  she  should  spend  the 
winter  in  France  and  take  a  job  on  a  war 
charity.  She  was  not  strong  enough  for 
nursing,  but  she  thought  it  would  be  de- 

[22] 


THE  MARNE 


lightful  to  take  convalescent  officers  for 
drives  in  the  Bois  in  the  noiseless  motor. 
"Troy  would  love  it  too,"  she  cabled. 

Mr.  Belknap,  however,  was  unmoved 
by  these  arguments.  "Future  too  doubt 
ful,"  he  cabled  back.  "Insist  on  your 
sailing.  Staterooms  November  tenth 
paid  for.  Troy  must  return  to  school." 

"Future  too  doubtful"  impressed  Mrs. 
Belknap  more  than  "Insist,"  though  she 
made  a  larger  use  of  the  latter  word  in 
explaining  to  her  friends  why,  after  all, 
she  was  obliged  to  give  up  her  projected 
war-work.  Meanwhile,  having  quite  re 
covered,  she  rose  from  her  cushions, 
donned  a  nurse's  garb,  poured  tea  once 
or  twice  at  a  fashionable  hospital,  and, 
on  the  strength  of  this  effort,  obtained 
permission  to  carry  supplies  (in  her  own 
motor)  to  the  devastated  regions. 

Troy,  of  course,  went  with  her,  and 
thus  had  his  first  glimpse  of  war. 

Fresh  in  his  mind  was  a  delicious  July 

[23] 


THE  MARNE 


day  at  Rheims  with  his  tutor,  and  the 
memory  of  every  detail  noted  on  the  way, 
along  the  green  windings  of  the  Marne, 
by  Meaux,  Montmirail  and  Epernay. 
Now,  traversing  the  same  towns,  he 
seemed  to  be  looking  into  murdered 
faces,  vacant  and  stony.  Where  he  had 
seen  the  sociable  gossipping  life  of  the 
narrow  streets,  young  men  lounging  at 
the  blacksmith's,  blue-sleeved  carters  sit 
ting  in  the  wine-shops  while  their  horses 
shook  off  the  flies  in  the  hot  sunshine  of 
the  village  square,  black-pinafored  chil 
dren  coming  home  from  school,  the  fat 
cure  stopping  to  talk  to  little  old  ladies 
under  the  church  porch,  girls  with  sleek 
hair  calling  to  each  other  from  the  door 
ways  of  the  shops,  and  women  in  sun 
burnt  gingham  bending  over  the  village 
wash-trough,  or  leaning  on  their  rakes 
among  the  hayricks — where  all  this  had 
been,  now  only  a  few  incalculably  old 
people  sat  in  the  doorways  and  looked 

[24] 


THE  MARNE 


with  bewildered  eyes  at  strange  soldiers 
fulfilling  the  familiar  tasks. 

This  was  what  war  did!  It  emptied 
towns  of  their  inhabitants  as  it  emptied 
veins  of  their  blood;  it  killed  houses  and 
lands  as  well  as  men.  Out  there,  a  few 
miles  beyond  the  sunny  vineyards  and  the 
low  hills,  men  were  dying  at  that  very 
moment  by  hundreds,  by  thousands — and 
their  motionless  young  bodies  must  have 
the  same  unnatural  look  as  these  wan 
ruins,  these  gutted  houses  and  sterile 
fields.  .  .  War  meant  Death,  Death, 
Death — Death  everywhere,  and  to  every 
thing. 

By  a  special  favour,  the  staff-officer 
who  accompanied  them  managed  to  ex 
tend  their  trip  to  the  ruined  chateau  of 
Mondement,  the  pivot  on  which  the  battle 
had  turned.  He  had  himself  been  in 
the  thick  of  the  fight,  and  standing  be 
fore  the  shattered  walls  of  the  old  house 
he  explained  the  struggle  for  the  spur  of 

[25] 


THE  MARNE 


Mondement:  the  advance  of  the  gray 
masses  across  the  plain,  their  capture  of 
the  ridge,  which  was  the  key  to  the  road 
to  Paris;  then  the  impetuous  rush  of 
.General  Humbert's  infantry,  repulsed, 
returning,  repulsed  again,  and  again  at 
tacking;  the  hand-to-hand  fighting  in 
court  and  gardens;  the  French  infantry's 
last  irresistible  dash,  the  batteries  rattling 
up,  getting  into  place  on  the  ridge,  and 
flinging  back  the  gray  battalions  from  the 
hillside  into  the  marshes. 

Mrs.  Belknap  smiled  and  exclaimed, 
with  vague  comments  and  a  wandering 
eye  (for  the  officer,  carried  away  by  his 
subject,  had  forgotten  her  and  become 
technical)  ;  while  Troy,  his  map  spread  on 
the  top  of  a  shot-riddled  wall,  followed 
every  word  and  gesture  with  a  devouring 
gaze  that  absorbed  at  the  same  time  all 
the  details  of  the  immortal  landscape. 

The  Marne — this  was  the  actual  set 
ting  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne!  This 
happy  temperate  landscape  with  its 

[26] 


THE  MARNE 


sheltering  woods,  its  friendly  fields  and 
downs  flowing  away  to  a  mild  sky,  had 
looked  on  at  the  most  awful  conflict  in 
history.  Scenes  of  anguish  and  heroism 
that  ought  to  have  had  some  Titanic 
background  of  cliff  and  chasm  had  un 
rolled  themselves  among  harmless  fields, 
and  along  wood-roads  where  wild  straw 
berries  grew,  and  children  cut  hazel- 
switches  to  drive  home  their  geese.  A 
name  of  glory  and  woe  was  attached  to 
every  copse  and  hollow,  and  to  each  gray 
steeple  above  the  village  roofs. 

Troy  listened,  his  heart  beating  higher 
at  each  exploit,  till  he  forgot  the  horror 
of  war,  and  thought  only  of  its  splen 
dours.  Oh,  to  have  been  there  too !  To 
have  had  even  the  smallest  share  in  those 
great  hours!  To  be  able  to  say,  as  this 
young  man  could  say:  "Yes,  I  was  in 
the  battle  of  the  Marne" ;  to  be  able  to 
break  off,  and  step  back  a  yard  or  two, 
correcting  one's  self  critically:  "No  .  .  . 
it  was  here  the  General  stood  when  I  told 

[27] 


THE  MARNE 


him  our  batteries  had  got  through  ..." 
or:  "This  is  the  very  spot  where  the  first 
seventy-five  was  trained  on  the  valley.  I 
can  see  the  swathes  it  cut  in  the  Bava 
rians  as  they  swarmed  up  at  us  a  third 
and  fourth  time  .  .  . " 

Troy  suddenly  remembered  a  bit  of 
Henry  the  Fifth  that  M.  Gantier  had 
been  fond  of  quoting: 

And  gentlemen  in  England  now  a-bed 

Shall  think  themselves  accursed  they  were  not 

here, 
And   hold   their   manhoods   cheap   whiles   any 

speaks 
That  fought  with  us. 

Ah,  yes — ah,  yes — to  have  been  in  the 
battle  of  the  Marne ! 

On  the  way  back,  below  the  crest  of 
the  hill,  the  motor  stopped  at  the  village 
church  and  the  officer  jumped  down. 

"Some  of  our  men  are  buried  here," 
he  said. 

[28] 


THE  MARNE 


Mrs.  Belknap,  with  a  murmur  of  sym 
pathy,  caught  up  the  bunch  of  roses  she 
had  gathered  in  the  ravaged  garden  of 
the  chateau,  and  they  picked  their  way 
among  the  smashed  and  slanting  stones 
of  the  cemetery  to  a  corner  behind  the 
church  where  wooden  crosses  marked  a 
row  of  fresh  graves.  Half-faded  flowers 
in  bottles  were  thrust  into  the  loose 
earth,  and  a  few  tin  wreaths  hung  on  the 
arms  of  the  crosses. 

Some  of  the  graves  bore  only  the  date 
of  the  battle,  with  "Pour  la  France"  or 
'Triez  pour  lui,"  but  on  others  names  and 
numbers  had  been  roughly  burnt  into  the 
crosses. 

Suddenly  Troy  stopped  short  with  a 
cry. 

"What  is  it?"  his  mother  asked. 

She  had  walked  ahead  of  him  to  the 
parapet  overhanging  the  valley,  and  for 
getting  her  roses  she  leaned  against  the 

[29] 


THE  MARNE 


low  cemetery  wall  while  the  officer  took 
up  his  story. 

Troy  made  no  answer.  Mrs.  Belknap 
stood  with  her  back  to  him,  and  he  did 
not  ask  her  to  turn.  He  did  not  want 
her,  or  anyone  else,  to  read  the  name  he 
had  just  read;  of  a  sudden  there  had 
been  revealed  to  him  the  deep  secretive- 
ness  of  sorrow.  But  he  stole  up  to  her 
and  drew  the  flowers  from  her  hand 
while  she  continued,  with  vague  inat 
tentive  murmurs,  to  follow  the  officer's 
explanations.  She  took  no  notice  of 
Troy,  and  he  went  back  to  the  grave  and 
laid  the  roses  on  it. 

On  the  cross  he  had  read:  "Septem 
ber  8th,  1914.  Paul  Gantier,  th 

Chasseurs  a  pied." 

"Oh,  poor  fellows  .  .  .  poor  fellows. 
Yes,  that's  right,  Troy;  put  the  roses  on 
their  graves,"  Mrs.  Belknap  assented 
approvingly,  as  she  picked  her  way  back 
to  the  motor. 

[30] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  tenth  of  November  came,  and 
they  sailed. 

The  week  in  the  steamer  was  intoler 
able,  not  only  because  they  were  packed 
like  herrings,  and  Troy  (who  had  never 
known  discomfort  before)  had  to  share 
his  narrow  cabin  with  two  young  Ger 
man-Americans  full  of  open  brag  about 
the  Fatherland;  but  also  because  of  the 
same  eternally  renewed  anecdotes  among 
the  genuine  Americans  about  the  perils 
and  discomforts  they  had  undergone,  and 
the  general  disturbance  of  their  plans. 

Most  of  the  passengers  were  in  ardent 
sympathy  with  the  allies,  and  hung  anxi 
ously  on  the  meagre  wirelesses;  but  a 
flat-faced  professor  with  lank  hair,  hav 
ing  announced  that  "there  were  two  sides 

Arf 

to   every   case,"    immediately   raised   up 
a    following    of    unnoticed    ladies    who 

[31] 


THE  MARNE 


"couldn't  believe  all  that  was  said  of  the 
Germans"  and  hoped  that  America  would 
never  be  "drawn  in";  while,  even  among 
the  right-minded,  there  subsisted  a  vague 
feeling  that  war  was  an  avoidable  thing 
which  one  had  only  to  reprobate  enough 
to  prevent  its  recurrence. 

They  found  New  York — Mrs.  Bel- 
knap's  New  York — buzzing  with  war- 
charities,  yet  apparently  unaware  of  the 
war.  That  at  least  was  Troy's  impres 
sion  during  the  twenty-four  hours  before 
he  was  packed  off  to  school  to  catch  up 
with  his  interrupted  studies. 

At  school  he  heard  the  same  incessant 
war-talk,  and  found  the  same  fundamental 
unawareness  of  the  meaning  of  the  war. 
At  first  the  boys  were  very  keen  to  hear 
his  story,  but  he  described  what  he  had 
seen  so  often — and  especially  his  haunt 
ing  impressions  of  the  Marne — that  they 
named  him  "Marny  Belknap,"  and  finally 
asked  him  to  cut  it  out. 

[32] 


THE  MARNE 


The  masters  were  mostly  frankly  for 
the  allies,  but  the  Rector  had  given  out 
that  neutrality  was  the  attitude  approved 
by  the  government,  and  therefore  a 
patriotic  duty;  and  one  Sunday  after 
chapel  he  gave  a  little  talk  to  explain 
why  the  President  thought  it  right  to  try 
to  keep  his  people  out  of  the  dreadful 
struggle.  The  words  duty  and  respon 
sibility  and  fortunate  privilege  recurred 
often  in  this  address,  and  it  struck  Troy 
as  odd  that  the  lesson  of  the  day  hap 
pened  to  be  the  story  of  the  Good 
Samaritan. 

When  he  went  home  for  the  Christmas 
holidays  everybody  was  sending  toys  and 
sugar-plums  to  the  Belgian  war-orphans, 
with  little  notes  from  "Happy  American 
children,"  requesting  to  have  their  gifts 
acknowledged. 

"It  makes  us  so  happy  to  help,"  beam 
ing  young  women  declared  with  a  kind 
of  ghoulish  glee,  doing  up  parcels,  plan- 

[33] 


THE  MARNE 


ning  war-tableaux  and  chanty  dances, 
rushing  to  "propaganda"  lectures  given 
by  handsome  French  officers,  and  keeping 
up  a  kind  of  continuous  picnic  on  the  ruins 
of  civilization. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Belknap  had  inevitably 
been  affected  by  the  surrounding  atmos 
phere. 

"The  tragedy  of  it — the  tragedy — 
no  one  can  tell  who  hasn't  seen  it,  and 
been  through  it,"  Mrs.  Belknap  would 
begin,  looking  down  her  long  dinner  table 
between  the  orchids  and  the  candelabra; 
and  the  pretty  women  and  prosperous 
men  would  interrupt  their  talk,  and  listen 
for  a  moment,  half  absently,  with  spurts 
of  easy  indignation  that  faded  out  again 
as  they  heard  the  story  oftener. 

After  all,  Mrs.  Belknap  wasn't  the 
only  person  who  had  seen  a  battlefield! 
Lots  and  lots  more  were  pouring  home 
all  the  time  with  fresh  tales  of  tragedy: 
the  Marne  had  become — in  a  way — an 

[34] 


THE  MARNE 


old    story.     People    wanted    something 
newer  .    .    .  different  .    .    . 

And  then,  why  hadn't  Joffre  followed 
up  the  offensive?  The  Germans  were 
wonderful  soldiers,  after  all.  .  .  Yes, 
but  such  beasts  .  .  .  sheer  devils.  .  . 
Here  was  Mr.  So-and-So,  just  back  from 
Belgium — such  horrible  stones — really 
unrepeatable !  "Don't  you  want  to  come 
and  hear  them,  my  dear?  Dine  with  us 
tomorrow:  he's  promised  to  come  unless 
he's  summoned  to  Washington.  But  do 
come  anyhow :  the  Jim  Cottages  are  going 
to  dance  after  dinner  ..." 

In  time  Mrs.  Belknap,  finding  herself 
hopelessly  outstoried,  out-adventured, 
out-charitied,  began  insensibly  to  take  a 
calmer  and  more  distant  view  of  the  war. 
What  was  the  use  of  trying  to  keep  up 
her  own  enthusiasm  when  that  of  her 
audience  had  flagged?  Wherever  she 
went  she  was  sure  to  meet  other  ladies 
who  had  arrived  from  France  much  more 

[35] 


THE  MARNE 


recently,  and  had  done  and  seen  much 
more  than  she  had.  One  after  another 
she  saw  them  received  with  the  same 
eagerness. 

"Of  course  we  all  know  about  the 
marvellous  things  you've  been  doing  in 
France — your  wonderful  war-work" — 
then,  like  herself,  they  were  super 
seded  by  some  later  arrival,  who  had 
been  nearer  the  front,  or  had  raised 
more  money,  or  had  had  an  audience  of 
the  Queen  of  the  Belgians,  or  an  auto 
graph  letter  from  Lord  Kitchener.  Nt> 
one  was  listened  to  for  long,  and  the 
most  eagerly  sought-for  were  like  the 
figures  in  a  moving-picture  show,  for 
ever  breathlessly  whisking  past  to  make 
way  for  others. 

Mr.  Belknap  had  always  been  less  elo 
quent  about  the  war  than  his  wife;  but 
somehow  Troy  had  fancied  he  felt  it 
more  deeply.  Gradually,  however,  he 
too  seemed  to  accept  the  situation  as  a 

[36] 


THE  MARNE 


matter  of  course,  and  Troy,  coming 
home  for  the  Easter  holidays,  found  at 
the  family  table  a  large  sonorous  per 
sonage — a  Senator,  just  back  from 
Europe — who,  after  rolling  out  vague 
praises  of  France  and  England  insidi 
ously  began  to  hint  that  it  was  a  pity 
to  see  such  wasted  heroism,  such  suicidal 
determination  on  the  part  of  the  allies 
to  resist  all  offers  of  peace  fron\  an  enemy 
so  obviously  their  superior. 

"She  wouldn't  be  if  America  came  in!" 
Troy  blurted  out,  reddening  at  the  sound 
of  his  voice. 

"America?"  someone  playfully  inter 
jected;  and  the  Senator  laughed,  and  said 
something1  about  geographical  immunity. 
"They  can't  touch  us.  This  isn't  our 
war,  young  man." 

"It  may  be  by  the  time  I'm  grown  up," 
Troy  persisted,  burning  redder. 

"Well,"  returned  the  Senator  good- 
humouredly,  "you'll  have  to  hurry,  for 

[37] 


THE  MARNE 


the  economists  all  say  it  can't  last  more 
than  a  year  longer.  Lord  Reading  told 
me— " 

"There's  been  misery  enough,  in  all 
conscience!"  sighed  a  lady,  playing  with 
her  pearls;  and  Mr.  Belknap  added 
gravely:  "By  the  time  Troy  grows  up  I 
hope  wars  and  war-talk  will  be  over  for 
good  and  all." 

"Oh,  well — at  his  age  every  fellow 
wants  to  go  out  and  kill  something,"  re 
marked  one  of  his  uncles  sympathetically. 

Troy  shuddered  at  the  well-meant 
words.  To  go  out  and  kill  something! 
They  thought  he  regarded  the  war  as  a 
sport,  just  as  they  regarded  it  as  a  mov 
ing-picture  show !  As  if  anyone  who  had 
had  even  a  glimpse  of  it  could  ever  again 
think  with  joy  of  killing !  His  boy's  mind 
was  sorely  exercised  to  define  the  urgent 
emotions  with  which  it  laboured.  To 
save  France — that  was  the  clear  duty  of 
the  world,  as  he  saw  it.  But  none  of  these 

[38] 


THE  MARNE 


kindly  careless  people  about  him  knew 
what  he  meant  when  he  said  "France.'' 
Bits  of  M.  Gantier's  talk  came  back  to 
him,  embodying  that  meaning. 

"Whatever  happens,  keep  your  mind 
keen  and  clear;  open  as  many  windows 
on  the  universe  as  you  can."  To  Troy 
France  had  been  the  biggest  of  those 
windows. 

The  young  tutor  had  never  declaimed 
about  his  country:  he  had  simply  told 
her  story,  and  embodied  her  ideals  in  his 
own  impatient,  questioning  and  yet  ardent 
spirit.  "Le  monde  est  aux  enthousiastes" 
he  had  once  quoted;  and  he  had  shown 
Troy  how  France  had  always  been  alive 
in  every  fibre,  and  how  her  inexhaustible 
vitality  had  been  perpetually  nourished 
on  criticism,  analysis  and  dissatisfaction. 

"Self-satisfaction  is  death,"  he  had 
said;  "France  is  the  phoenix-country, 
always  rising  from  the  ashes  of  her 
recognized  mistakes." 

[39] 


THE  MARNE 


Troy  felt  what  a  wonderful  help  it 
must  be  to  have  that  long  rich  past  in 
one's  blood.  Every  stone  that  France 
had  carved,  every  song  she  had  sung, 
every  new  idea  she  had  struck  out,  every 
beauty  she  had  created  in  her  thousand 
fruitful  years,  was  a  tie  between  her  and 
her  children.  These  things  were  more 
glorious  than  her  battles,  for  it  was  be 
cause  of  them  that  all  civilization  was 
bound  up  in  her,  and  that  nothing  that 
concerned  her  could  concern  her  only. 


[40] 


CHAPTER  V 

"IT  seems  too  absurd,"  said  Mrs.  Bel- 
knap;  "but  Troy  will  be  eighteen  this 
week.  And  that  means,"  she  added  with 
a  sigh,  "that  this  horrible  war  has  been 
going  on  for  three  whole  years.  Do  you 
remember,  dearest,  your  fifteenth  birth 
day  was  on  the  very  day  that  odious 
Archduke  was  assassinated?  We  had  a 
picnic  on  the  Morteratsch." 

"Oh,  dear,"  cried  Sophy  Wicks,  fling 
ing  her  tennis  racket  into  the  air  with  a 
swing  that  landed  it  in  the  middle  of  the 
empty  court — "perhaps  that's  the  reason 
he's  never  stopped  talking  about  the  war 
for  a  single  minute  since!" 

Round  the  big  tea-table  under  the 
trees  there  was  a  faint  hush  of  disap 
proval.  A  year  before,  Sophy  Wicks' 
airy  indifference  to  the  events  that  were 

[41] 


THE  MARNE 


agitating  the  world  had  amused  some 
people  and  won  the  frank  approval  of 
others.  She  did  not  exasperate  her 
friends  by  professions  of  pacifism,  she 
simply  declared  that  the  war  bored  her; 
and  after  three  years  of  vain  tension,  of 
effort  in  the  void,  something  in  the 
baffled  American  heart  whispered  that, 
things  being  as  they  were,  she  was  per 
haps  right. 

But  now  things  were  no  longer  as  they 
had  been.  Looking  back  Troy  surveyed 
the  gradual  development  of  the  war-feel 
ing  as  it  entered  into  a  schoolboy's  range 
of  vision.  He  had  begun  to  notice  the 
change  before  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania.  Even  in  the  early  days,  when  his 
school-fellows  had  laughed  at  him,  and 
called  him  "Marny,"  some  of  them  had 
listened  to  him  and  imitated  him.  It  had 
become  the  fashion  to  have  a  collection 
of  war-trophies  from  the  battle-fields. 
The  boys'  sisters  were  "adopting  war- 

[42] 


THE  MARNE 


orphans"  at  long  distance,  and  when  Troy 
went  home  for  the  holidays  he  heard 
more  and  more  talk  of  war-charities,  and 
noticed  that  the  funds  collected  were  no 
longer  raised  by  dancing  and  fancy-balls. 
People  who  used  the  war  as  an  oppor 
tunity  to  have  fun  were  beginning  to  be 
treated  almost  as  coldly  as  the  pacifists. 

But  the  two  great  factors  in  the  na 
tional  change  of  feeling  were  the  Lusi- 
tania  and  the  training-camps. 

The  Lusitania  showed  America  what 
the  Germans  were,  Plattsburg  tried  to 
show  her  the  only  way  of  dealing  with 
them. 

Both  events  called  forth  a  great  deal 
of  agitated  discussion,  for,  if  they  fo- 
cussed  the  popular  feeling  for  war,  they 
also  gave  the  opponents  of  war  in  general 
a  point  of  departure  for  their  arguments. 
For  a  while  feeling  ran  high,  and  Troy, 
listening  to  the  heated  talk  at  his  parents' 
table,  perceived  with  disgust  and  wonder 

[43] 


THE  MARNE 


that  at  the  bottom  of  the  anti-war  senti 
ment,  whatever  specious  impartiality  it 
put  on,  there  was  always  the  odd  belief 
that  life-in-itself — just  the  mere  raw  fact 
of  being  alive — was  the  one  thing  that 
mattered,  and  getting  killed  the  one  thing 
to  be  avoided. 

This  new  standard  of  human  dignity 
plunged  Troy  into  the  lowest  depths  of 
pessimism.  And  it  bewildered  him  as 
much  as  it  disgusted  him,  since  it  did 
away  at  a  stroke  with  all  that  gave  any 
interest  to  the  fact  of  living.  It  killed 
romance,  it  killed  poetry  and  adventure, 
it  took  all  the  meaning  out  of  history  and 
conduct  and  civilization.  There  had 
never  been  anything  worth  while  in  the 
world  that  had  not  had  to  be  died  for, 
and  it  was  as  clear  as  day  that  a  world 
which  no  one  would  die  for  could  never 
be  a  world  worth  being  alive  in. 

Luckily  most  people  did  not  require 
to  reason  the  matter  out  in  order  to  feel 

[44] 


THE  MARNE 


as  Troy  did,  and  in  the  long  run  the 
Lusitania  and  Plattsburg  won  the  day. 
America  tore  the  gag  of  neutrality  from 
her  lips,  and  with  all  the  strength  of  her 
liberated  lungs  claimed  her  right  to  a 
place  in  the  struggle.  The  pacifists  crept 
into  their  holes,  and  only  Sophy  Wicks 
remained  unconverted. 

Troy  Belknap,  tall  and  shy  and  awk 
ward,  lay  at  her  feet,  and  blushed  and 
groaned  inwardly  at  her  wrong-headed- 
ness.  All  the  other  girls  were  war-mad; 
with  the  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations 
the  country  had  burst  into  flame,  and  with 
the  declaration  of  war  the  flame  had  be 
come  a  conflagration.  And  now,  having 
at  last  a  definite  and  personal  concern  in 
the  affair,  everyone  was  not  only  happier 
but  more  sensible  than  when  a  perpetually 
thwarted  indignation  had  had  to  expend 
itself  in  vague  philanthropy. 

It  was  a  peculiar  cruelty  of  Fate  that 
made  Troy  feel  Miss  Wicks'  indifference 

[45] 


THE  MARNE 


more  than  the  zeal  of  all  the  other 
young  women  gathered  about  the  Bel- 
knap  tennis-court.  In  spite  of  everything, 
he  found  her  more  interesting,  more  in 
exhaustible,  more  "his  size"  (as  they  said 
at  school)  than  any  of  the  gay  young  war- 
goddesses  who  sped  their  tennis  balls 
across  the  Belknap  court. 

It  was  a  Long  Island  Sunday  in  June. 
A  caressing  warmth  was  in  the  air,  and  a 
sea-breeze  stirred  the  tops  of  the  lime- 
branches.  The  smell  of  fresh  hay-cocks 
blew  across  the  lawn,  and  a  sparkle  of 
blue  water  and  a  dipping  of  white  sails 
showed  through  the  trees  beyond  the  hay- 
fields. 

Mrs.  Belknap  smiled  indulgently  on 
the  pleasant  scene:  her  judgment  of 
Sophy  Wicks  was  less  severe  than  that  of 
the  young  lady's  contemporaries.  What 
did  it  matter  if  a  chit  of  eighteen,  having 
taken  up  a  foolish  attitude,  was  too  self- 
censcious  to  renounce  it? 

[46] 


THE  MARNE 


"Sophy  will  feel  differently  when  she 
has  nursed  some  of  our  own  soldiers  in 
a  French  base-hospital,"  she  said,  (  ad 
dressing  herself  to  the  disapproving 
group. 

The  young  girl  raised  her  merry  eye 
brows.  "Who'll  stay  and  nurse  Granny 
if  I  go  to  a  French  base-hospital  ?  Troy, 
will  you?"  she  suggested. 

The  other  girls  about  the  tea-table 
laughed.  Though  they  were  only  Troy's 
age,  or  younger,  they  did  not  mind  his 
being  teased,  for  he  seemed  only  a  little 
boy  to  them,  now  that  they  all  had 
friends  or  brothers  in  the  training  camps 
or  on  the  way  to  France.  Besides,  though 
they  disapproved  of  Sophy's  tone,  her 
argument  was  unanswerable.  They  knew 
that  her  precocious  wisdom  and  self- 
confidence  had  been  acquired  at  the  head 
of  her  grandmother's  household,  and  that 
there  was  no  one  else  to  look  after  poor 
old  paralytic  Mrs.  Wicks  and  the  orphan 

[47] 


THE  MARNE 


brothers  and  sisters  to  whom  Sophy  was 
mother. and  guardian. 

Two  or  three  of  the  young  men  present 
were  in  uniform,  and  one  of  them,  Mrs. 
Belknap's  nephew,  had  a  captain's 
double  bar  on  his  shoulder.  What  did 
Troy  Belknap  and  Sophy  Wicks  matter 
to  young  women  playing  a  last  tennis 
match  with  heroes  on  their  way  to 
France  ? 

The  game  began  again,  with  much 
noise  and  cheerful  wrangling.  Mrs.  Bel- 
knap  walked  toward  the  house  to  wel 
come  a  group  of  visitors,  and  Miss 
Wicks  remained  beside  the  tea-table, 
alone  with  Troy.  She  was  leaning  back 
in  a  wide  basket-chair,  her  thin  ankles  in 
white  open-work  stockings  thrust  out 
under  her  short  skirt,  her  arms  locked 
behind  her  thrown-back  head.  Troy  lay 
on  the  ground  and  plucked  at  the  tufts  of 
grass  at  his  elbow.  Why  was  it  that,  with 
all  the  currents  of  vitality  flowing  be- 

[48] 


THE  MARNE 


tween  this  group  of  animated  girls  and 
youths,  he  could  feel  no  nearness  but 
hers?  The  feeling  was  not  particularly 
agreeable,  but  there  was  no  shaking  it 
off;  it  was  like  a  scent  that  has  got  into 
one's  clothes.  He  was  not  sure  that  he 
liked  her,  but  he  wanted  to  watch  her, 
to  listen  to  her,  to  defend  her  against 
the  mockery  and  criticism  in  the  eyes  of 
the  others.  At  this  point  his  powers  of 
analysis  gave  out,  and  his  somewhat  ex 
tensive  vocabulary  failed  him.  After  all, 
he  had  to  fall  back  on  the  stupid  old 
school  phrase.  She  was  "his  size" — that 
was  all. 

"Why  do  you  always  say  the  war 
bores  you?"  he  asked  abruptly,  without 
looking  up. 

"Because  it  does,  my  boy;  and  so  do 
you,  when  you  hold  forth  about  it." 

He  was  silent,  and  she  touched  his  arm 
with  the  tip  of  her  swinging  tennis-shoe. 
"Don't  you  see,  Troy,  it's  not  our  job — • 

[49] 


THE  MARNE 


not  just  now,  anyhow.    So  what's  the  use 
of  always  jawing  about  it?" 

She  jumped  up,  recovered  her  racket, 
and  ran  to  take  her  place  in  a  new  set 
beside  Troy's  cousin,  the  captain  .  .  . 


[50] 


CHAPTER  VI 

IT  was  not  "his  job" — that  was  the 
bitter  drop  in  all  the  gladness. 

At  last  what  Troy  longed  for  had 
come:  his  country  was  playing  her  part. 
And  he,  who  had  so  watched  and  hoped 
and  longed  for  the  divine  far-off  event, 
had  talked  of  it  early  and  late,  to  old  and 
young,  had  got  himself  laughed  at, 
scolded,  snubbed,  ridiculed,  nicknamed, 
commemorated  in  a  school-magazine  skit 
in  which  "Marne"  and  uyarn"  and  "oh, 
darn,"  formed  the  refrain  of  a  lyric  be 
ginning  "Oh  say,  have  you  heard  Bel- 
knap  flap  in  the  breeze?",  he,  who  had 
borne  all  the  scoldings  and  all  the  ridi 
cule,  sustained  by  a  mysterious  secret 
faith  in  the  strength  of  his  cause,  now 
saw  that  cause  triumph,  and  all  his  coun 
try  waving  with  flags  and  swarming  with 
khaki,  while  he  had  to  stand  aside  and 


THE  MARNE 


look  on,  because  his  coming  birthday  was 
only  his  nineteenth.  .  .  He  remembered 
the  anguish  of  regret  with  which  he  had 
seen  M.  Gantier  leave  St.  Moritz  to  join 
his  regiment,  and  thought  now  with  pas 
sionate  envy  of  his  tutor's  fate.  uDulce 
et  decorum  est  .  .  ."  The  old  hack 
neyed  phrase  had  taken  on  a  beauty  that 
filled  his  eyes  with  tears. 

Eighteen — and  "nothing  doing"  till  he 
was  twenty-one!  He  could  have  killed 
the  cousins  and  uncles  strutting  about  in 
uniform  and  saying:  "Don't  fret,  old 
man — there's  lots  of  time.  The  war  is 
sure  to  last  another  four  years." 

To  say  that,  and  laugh,  how  little  they 
must  know  of  what  war  meant! 

It  was  an  old  custom  in  the  Belknap 
family  to  ask  Troy  what  he  wanted  for 
his  birthday.  The  custom  (according  to 
tradition)  had  originated  on  his  sixth  an 
niversary,  when,  being  given  a  rabbit 


THE  MARNE 


with  ears  that  wiggled,  he  had  grown 
very  red  and  stammered  out:  "I  did  so 
want  a  'cyclopaedia  .  .  . " 

Since  then,  he  had  always  been  con 
sulted  on  the  subject  with  a  good  deal  of 
ceremony,  and  had  spent  no  little  time 
and  thought  in  making  a  judicious  choice 
in  advance.  But  this  year  his  choice  took 
no  thinking  over. 

"I  want  to  go  to  France,"  he  said  im 
mediately. 

"To  France—  ?" 

It  instantly  struck  his  keen  ears  that 
there  was  less  surprise  than  he  had 
feared  in  Mr.  Belknap's  voice. 

"To  France,  my  boy?  The  govern 
ment  doesn't  encourage  foreign  travel 
just  now." 

"I  want  to  volunteer  in  the  Foreign 
Legion,"  said  Troy,  feeling  as  if  the 
veins  of  his  forehead  would  burst. 

Mrs.  Belknap  groaned,  but  Mr.  Bel- 
knap  retained  his  composure. 

[53] 


THE  MARNE 


"My  dear  chap,  I  don't  think  you  know 
much  about  the  Foreign  Legion.  It's  a 
pretty  rough  berth  for  a  fellow  like  you. 
And  they're  as  likely  as  not,"  he  added 
carelessly,  "to  send  you  to  Morocco  or 
the  Kamerun." 

Troy,  knowing  this  to  be  true,  hung  his 
head. 

"Now,"  Mr.  Belknap  continued,  tak 
ing  advantage  of  his  silence,  "my  counter- 
proposition  is  that  you  should  go  to 
Brazil  for  three  months  with  your  uncle 
Tom  Jarvice,  who  is  being  sent  down 
there  on  a  big  engineering  job.  It's  a 
wonderful  opportunity  to  see  the  coun 
try — see  it  like  a  prince,  too,  for  he'll 
have  a  special  train  at  his  disposal. — 
Then,  when  you  come  back,"  he  con 
tinued,  his  voice  weakening  a  little  under 
the  strain  of  Troy's  visible  inattention, 
"we'll  see  ..." 

"See  what?" 

[54] 


THE  MARNE 


"Well — I  don't  know  ...  a  camp 
.  .  .  till  it's  time  for  Harvard  .  .  . " 

"I  want  to  go  to  France  at  once,  father," 
said  Troy,  with  the  voice  of  a  man. 

"To  do  what?"  wailed  his  mother. 

"Oh,  any  old  thing — drive  an  ambu 
lance,"  Troy  struck  out  at  random. 

"But,  dearest,"  she  protested,  "you 
could  never  even  learn  to  drive  a  Ford 
car!" 

"That's  only  because  it  never  inter 
ested  me." 

"But  one  of  those  huge  ambulances — 
you'll  be  killed!" 

"Father!"  exclaimed  Troy,  in  a  tone 
that  seemed  to  say:  "Aren't  we  out  of  the 
nursery,  at  least?" 

"Don't  talk  to  him  like  that,  Joseph 
ine,"  said  Mr.  Belknap,  visibly  wishing 
that  he  knew  how  to  talk  to  his  son  him 
self,  but  perceiving  that  his  wife  was  on 
the  wrong  tack. 

"Don't  you  see,  father,  that  there's  no 

[55] 


THE  MARNE 


use  talking  at  all?  I'm  going  to  get  to 
France,  anyhow." 

"In  defiance  of  our  wishes?" 

"Oh,  you'll  forget  all  that  later,"  said 
Troy. 

Mrs.  Belknap  began  to  cry,  and  her 
husband  turned  on  her. 

"My  dear,  you're  really — really — / 
understand  Troy!"  he  blurted  out,  his 
veins  swelling  too. 

But,  if  the  Red  Cross  is  to  send  you 
on  that  mission  to  Italy,  why  shouldn't 
Troy  wait,  and  go  as  your  secretary?" 
Mrs.  Belknap  said,  tacking  skilfully. 

Mr.  Belknap,  who  had  not  yet  made 
up  his  mind  to  accept  the  mission,  made 
it  up  on  the  instant.  "Yes,  Troy — why 
not?  I  shall  be  going  myself — in  a 
month  or  so." 

"I  want  to  go  to  France,"  said  his  son. 
And  he  added,  laughing  with  sudden 
courage :  "You  see,  you've  never  refused 
me  a  birthday  present  yet." 

[56] 


CHAPTER  VII 

FRANCE  again — France  at  last!  As 
the  cliffs  grew  green  across  the  bay  he 
could  have  knelt  to  greet  them — as  he 
hurried  down  the  gang-plank  with  the 
eager  jostling  crowd  he  could  have 
kissed  the  sacred  soil  they  were  treading. 

The  very  difficulties  and  delays  of  the 
arrival  thrilled  and  stimulated  him,  gave 
him  a  keener  sense  of  his  being  already 
a  humble  participant  in  the  conflict. 
Passports,  identification  papers,  sharp 
interrogatories,  examinations,  the  en 
forced  surrendering  of  keys  and  papers; 
how  different  it  all  was  from  the  old 
tame  easy  landings,  with  the  noiseless 
motor  waiting  at  the  dock,  and  France 
lying  safe  and  open  before  them  which 
ever  way  they  chose  to  turn! 

[57] 


THE  MARNE 


On  the  way  over,  many  things  had  sur 
prised  and  irritated  him — not  least  the 
attitude  of  some  of  his  fellow  passengers. 
The  boat  swarmed  with  young  civilians, 
too  young  for  military  service,  or  hav 
ing,  for  some  more  or  less  valid  reason, 
been  exempted  from  it.  They  were  all 
pledged  to  some  form  of  relief-work,  and 
all  overflowing  with  zeal.  "France" 
was  as  often  on  their  lips  as  on  Troy's. 
But  some  of  them  seemed  to  be  mainly 
concerned  with  questions  of  uniform 
and  rank.  The  steamer  seethed  with 
wrangles  and  rivalries  between  their 
various  organizations,  and  now  and  then 
the  young  crusaders  seemed  to  lose  sight 
of  the  object  of  their  crusade — as  had 
too  frequently  been  the  case  with  their 
predecessors. 

Very  few  of  the  number  knew  France 
or  could  speak  French,  and  most  of  them 
were  full  of  the  importance  of  America's 
mission.  This  was  Liberty's  chance  to 

[58] 


' 


THE  MARNE 


Enlighten  the  World;  and  all  these 
earnest  youths  apparently  regarded  them 
selves  as  her  chosen  torch-bearers. 

"We  must  teach  France  efficiency,"  they 
all  said  with  a  glowing  condescension. 

The  women  were  even  more  sure  of 
their  mission;  and  there  were  plenty  of 
them,  middle-aged  as  well  as  young,  in 
uniform  too,  cocked-hatted,  badged  and 
gaitered — though  most  of  them,  appa 
rently,  were  going  to  sit  in  the  offices  of 
Paris  war  charities;  and  Troy  had  never 
noticed  that  Frenchwomen  had  donned 
khaki  for  that  purpose. 

"France  must  be  purified,"  these 
young  Columbias  proclaimed.  "French 
men  must  be  taught  to  respect  Women. 
We  must  protect  our  boys  from  contam 
ination  .  .  .  the  dreadful  theatres  .  .  . 
and  the  novels  .  .  .  and  the  Boule 
vards.  .  .  Of  course,  we  mustn't  be  hard 
on  the  French,  .  .  .  for  theyVe  never 
known  Home  Life  or  the  Family,  but  we 

[59] 


THE  MARNE 


must  show  them  ...  we  must  set  the 
example  ..." 

Troy,  sickened  by  their  blatancy,  had 
kept  to  himself  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  trip ;  but  during  the  last  days  he  had 
been  drawn  into  talk  by  a  girl  who  re 
minded  him  of  Miss  Wicks,  though  she 
was  in  truth  infinitely  prettier.  The 
evenings  below  decks  were  long,  and  he 
sat  at  her  side  in  the  saloon  and  listened 
to  her. 

Her  name  was  Hinda  Warlick,  and 
she  came  from  the  Middle  West.  He 
gathered  from  her  easy  confidences  that 
she  was  singing  in  a  suburban  church 
choir  while  waiting  for  a  vaudeville  en 
gagement.  Her  studies  had  probably 
been  curtailed  by  the  need  of  preparing 
a  repertory,  for  she  appeared  to  think 
that  Joan  of  Arc  was  a  Revolutionary 
hero,  who  had  been  guillotined  with 
Marie  Antoinette  for  blowing  up  the 
Bastille;  and  her  notions  of  French  his- 

[60] 


THE  MARNE 


tory  did  not  extend  beyond  this  striking 
episode.  But  she  was  ready  and  eager 
to  explain  France  to  Troy,  and  to  the 
group  of  young  men  who  gathered  about 
her,  listening  to  her  piercing  accents  and 
gazing  into  her  deep  blue  eyes. 

"We  must  carry  America  right  into 
the  heart  of  France — for  she  has  got  a 
great  big  splendid  heart,  in  spite  of 
everything"  Miss  Warlick  declared. 
"We  must  teach  her  to  love  children  and 
home  and  the  outdoor  life;  and  you 
American  boys  must  teach  the  young 
Frenchmen  to  love  their  mothers.  You 
must  set  the  example.  .  .  Oh,  boys,  do 
you  know  what  my  ambition  is?  It's  to 
organize  an  Old  Home  Week  just  like 
ours,  all  over  France,  from  Harver 
right  down  to  Marseilles.  And  all 
through  the  devastated  regions  too. 
Wouldn't  it  be  lovely  if  we  could  get 
General  Pershing  to  let  us  keep  Home 
Week  right  up  at  the  front,  at  'Eep  and 

[61] 


THE  MARNE 


Leal  and  Rams,  and  all  those  martyr 
cities — right  close  up  in  the  trenches?  So 
that  even  the  Germans  would  see  us  and 
hear  us,  and  perhaps  learn  from  us  too? 
— for  you  know  we  mustn't  despair  of 
teaching  even  the  Germans !" 

Troy,  as  he  crept  away,  heard  one 
young  man,  pink  and  shock-headed,  mur 
mur  shyly  to  the  prophetess:  "Hearing 
you  say  this  has  made  it  all  so  clear 
to  me" — and  an  elderly  gentleman,  ad 
justing  his  eye-glasses,  added  with  nasal 
emphasis:  "Yes,  Miss  Warlick  has  ex 
pressed  in  a  very  lovely  way  what  we  all 
feel;  that  America's  mission  is  to  con 
tribute  the  human  element  to  this  war." 

"Oh,  good  God,"  Troy  groaned, 
crawling  to  his  darkened  cabin.  He  re 
membered  M.  Gander's  phrase:  "Self- 
satisfaction  is  death,"  and  felt  a  sudden 
yearning  for  Sophy  Wicks'  ironic  eyes 
and  her  curt:  "What's  the  use  of  jaw 
ing?" 

[62] 


THE  MARNE 


He  had  been  for  six  months  on  his  job, 
and  was  beginning  to  know  something 
about  it:  to  know,  for  instance,  that 
nature  had  never  meant  him  for  an 
ambulance-driver.  Nevertheless  he  had 
stuck  to  his  task  with  such  a  dogged  de 
termination  to  succeed  that  after  several 
months  about  the  Paris  hospitals  he  was 
beginning  to  be  sent  to  exposed  sectors. 

His  first  sight  of  the  desolated  country 
he  had  traversed  three  years  earlier 
roused  old  memories  of  the  Gantier 
family,  and  he  wrote  once  more  to  their 
little  town,  but  again  without  result. 
Then  one  day  he  was  sent  to  a  sector  of 
the  Vosges  which  was  held  by  American 
troops.  His  heart  was  beating  hard  as 
the  motor  rattled  over  the  hills,  through 
villages  empty  of  their  inhabitants,  like 
those  of  the  Marne,  but  swarming  with 
big  fair-haired  soldiers.  The  land  lifted 
and  dipped  again,  and  he  saw  ahead  of 
him  the  ridge  once  crowned  by  M. 

[63] 


THE  MARNE 


Gander's  village,  and  the  wall  of  the 
terraced  garden,  with  the  horn-beam 
arbour  putting  forth  its  early  green. 
Everything  else  was  in  ruins:  pale 
weather-bleached  ruins  over  which  the 
rains  and  suns  of  three  years  had  passed 
effacingly.  The  church,  once  so  firm  and 
four-square  on  the  hill,  was  now  a  mere 
tracery  against  the  clouds;  the  hospice 
roofless,  the  houses  all  gutted  and  bulg 
ing,  with  black  smears  of  smoke  on  their 
inner  walls.  At  the  head  of  the  street 
a  few  old  women  and  children  were  hoe 
ing  vegetables  before  a  row  of  tin-roofed 
shanties,  and  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut  flew  the 
stars  and  stripes  across  the  way. 

Troy  jumped  down,  and  began  to  ask 
questions.  At  first  the  only  person  who 
recognized  the  name  of  Gantier  was  an 
old  woman  too  frightened  and  feeble 
minded  to  answer  intelligibly.  Then  a 
French  territorial  who  was  hoeing  with 

[64] 


THE  MARNE 


the  women  came  forward.  He  belonged 
to  the  place  and  knew  the  story. 

"M.  Gantier — the  old  gentleman? 
He  was  mayor,  and  the  Germans  took 
him.  He  died  in  Germany.  The  young 
girl — Mile.  Gantier — was  taken  with 
him.  No,  she's  not  dead.  .  .  I  don't 
know.  .  .  She's  shut  up  somewhere  in 
Germany  .  .  .  queer  in  the  head,  they  say. 
.  .  .  The  sons — ah,  you  knew  Monsieur 
Paul?  He  went  first  .  .  .  What,  the 
others?  .  .  .  Yes;  the  three  others — 
Louis  at  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette;  Jean 
on  a  submarine;  poor  little  Felix,  the 
youngest,  of  the  fever  at  Salonika. 
Volla.  .  .  The  old  lady?  Ah,  she  and 
her  sister  went  away  .  .  .  some  char 
itable  people  took  them,  I  don't  know 
where.  .  .  I've  got  the  address  some 
where  .  .  ." 

He  fumbled,  and  brought  out  a  strip 
of  paper  on  which  was  written  the  name 
of  a  town  in  the  centre  of  France. 

[65] 


THE  MARNE 


"There's  where  they  were  a  year  ago. 
.  .  .  Yes,  you  may  say:  there's  a  family 
gone — wiped  out.  How  often  I've  seen 
them  all  sitting  there,  laughing  and 
drinking  coffee  under  the  arbour!  They 
were  not  rich,  but  they  were  happy,  and 
proud  of  each  other.  That's  over." 

He  went  back  to  his  hoeing. 

After  that,  whenever  Troy  Belknap 
got  back  to  Paris,  he  hunted  for  the  sur 
viving  Gantiers.  For  a  long  time  he 
could  get  no  trace  of  them;  then  he  re 
membered  his  old  governess,  Mme. 
Lebuc,  for  whom  Mrs.  Belknap  had 
found  employment  in  a  refugee  bureau. 

He  ran  down  Mme.  Lebuc,  who  was 
still  at  her  desk  in  the  same  big  room, 
facing  a  row  of  horse-hair  benches  packed 
with  tired  people  waiting  their  turn  for 
a  clothing-ticket  or  a  restaurant  card. 

Mme.  Lebuc  had  grown  much  older, 
and  her  filmy  eyes  peered  anxiously 

[66] 


THE  MARNE 


through  large  spectacles  before  she 
recognized  Troy.  Then,  after  tears  and 
laptures,  he  set  forth  his  errand,  and 
she  began  to  peer  again  anxiously,  shuf 
fling  about  the  bits  of  paper  on  the  desk, 
and  confusing  her  records  hopelessly. 

"Why,  is  that  you?"  cried  a  gay  young 
voice;  and  there,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
room,  sat  one  of  the  young  war-goddesses 
of  the  Belknap  tennis  court,  trim,  uni 
formed,  important,  with  a  row  of  bent 
backs  in  shabby  black  before  her  desk. 

"Ah,  Miss  Batchford  will  tell  you — > 
she's  so  quick  and  clever,"  Mme.  Lebuc 
sighed,  resigning  herself  to  chronic  be 
wilderment. 

Troy  crossed  to  the  other  desk.  An 
old  woman  sat  before  it,  in  threadbare 
mourning,  a  crape  veil  on  her  twitching 
head.  She  spoke  in  a  low  voice,  slowly, 
taking  a  long  time  to  explain;  each  one 
of  Miss  Batchford's  quick  questions  put 

[67] 


THE  MARNE 


her  back,  and  she  had  to  begin  all  over 
again. 

"Oh,  these  refugees!"  cried  Miss 
Batchford,  stretching  a  bangled  arm 
above  the  crape  veil  to  clasp  Troy's 
hand.  uDo  sit  down,  Mr.  Belknap. 
Depechez-vous,  s'il  vous  plait/'  she  said, 
not  too  unkindly,  to  the  old  woman ;  and 
added,  to  Troy:  "There's  no  satisfying 
^them." 

At  the  sound  of  Troy's  name,  the  old 
woman  had  turned  her  twitching  head, 
putting  back  her  veil.  Her  eyes  met 
Troy's,  and  they  looked  at  each  other 
doubtfully.  Then — "Madame  Gantier!" 
he  exclaimed. 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  sajd,  the  tears  run 
ning  down  her  face. 

Troy  was  not  sure  if  she  recognized 
him,  though  his  name  had  evidently  called 
up  some  vague  association.  He  saw  that 
most  things  had  grown  far  off  to  her, 
and  that  for  the  moment  her  whole  mind 

[68] 


THE  MARNE 


was  centred  on  the  painful  and  humili 
ating  effort  of  putting  her  case  to  this 
strange  young  woman  who  snapped  out 
questions  like  a  machine. 

"Do  you  know  her?"  asked  Miss 
Batchford,  surprised. 

"I  used  to,  I  believe,"  Troy  answered. 

"You  can't  think  what  she  wants — 
just  everything!  They're  all  alike.  She 
wants  to  borrow  five  hundred  francs  to 
furnish  a  flat  for  herself  and  her  sister." 

"Well,  why  not?" 

"Why,  we  don't  lend  money,  of  course. 
It's  against  all  our  principles.  We  give 
work,  or  relief  in  kind — that's  what  I'm 
telling  her." 

"I  see.     Could  I  give  it  to  her?" 

"What — all  that  money?  Certainly 
not.  You  don't  know  them!" 

Troy  shook  hands  and  went  out  into 
the  street  to  wait  for  Mme.  Gantier;  and 
when  she  came  he  told  her  who  he  was. 
She  cried  and  shook  a  great  deal,  and  he 

[69] 


THE  MARNE 


called  a  cab  and  drove  her  home  to  the 
poor  lodging  where  she  and  her  sister 
lived.  The  sister  had  become  weak- 
minded,  and  the  room  was  dirty  and  un 
tidy  because,  as  Mme.  Gantier  explained, 
her  lameness  prevented  her  from  keep 
ing  it  clean,  and  they  could  not  afford  a 
char-woman.  The  pictures  of  the  four 
dead  sons  hung  on  the  wall,  a  wisp  of 
crape  above  each,  with  all  their  ribbons 
and  citations.  But  when  Troy  spoke  of 
old  M.  Gantier  and  the  daughter  Mme. 
Gantier's  face  grew  like  a  stone,  and  her 
sister  began  to  whimper  like  an  animal. 

Troy  remembered  the  territorial's 
phrase:  uYou  may  say:  there's  a  family 
wiped  out." 

He  went  away,  too  shy  to  give  the  five 
hundred  francs  in  his  pocket. 

One  of  his  first  cares  on  getting  back 
to  France  had  been  to  order  a  head-stone 
for  Paul  Gantier's  grave  at  Mondement. 
!A  week  or  two  after  his  meeting  with 

[70] 


THE  MARNE 


Mme.  Gantier  his  ambulance  was  or 
dered  to  Epernay,  and  he  managed  to 
get  out  to  Mondement  and  have  the  stone 
set  up  and  the  grave  photographed.  He 
had  brought  some  flowers  to  lay  on  it, 
and  he  borrowed  two  tin  wreaths  from 
the  neighbouring  crosses,  so  that  Paul 
Gander's  mound  should  seem  the  most 
fondly  tended  of  all.  He  sent  the  photo 
graph  to  Mme.  Gantier,  with  a  five  hun 
dred  franc  bill;  but  after  a  long  time  his 
letter  came  back  from  the  post-office. 
The  two  old  women  had  gone  .  .  . 


[71] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IN  February  Mr.  Belknap  arrived  in 
Paris  on  a  mission.  Tightly  buttoned 
into  his  Red  Cross  uniform,  he  looked 
to  his  son  older  and  fatter,  but  more  im 
portant  and  impressive,  than  usual. 

He  was  on  his  way  to  Italy,  where  he 
was  to  remain  for  three  months,  and 
Troy  learned  with  dismay  that  he  needed 
a  secretary,  and  had  brought  none  with 
him  because  he  counted  on  his  son  to  fill 
the  post. 

"You've  had  nearly  a  year  of  this,  old 
man,  and  the  front's  as  quiet  as  a  church. 
As  for  Paris,  isn't  it  too  frivolous  for 
you?  It's  much  farther  from  the  war 
than  New  York  nowadays.  I  haven't 
had  a  dinner  like  this  since  your 
mother  joined  the  Voluntary  'Rationing 
League.'  "  Mr.  Belknap  smiled  at  him 

[72] 


THE  MARNE 


across  their  little  table  at  the  Nouveau 
Luxe. 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  it — about  New 
York,  I  mean,"  Troy  answered  com 
posedly.  "It's  our  turn  now.  But  Paris 
isn't  a  bit  too  frivolous  for  me.  Which 
shall  it  be,  father — the  Palais  Royal  or 
the  Capucines?  They  say  the  new  revue 
there  is  great  fun." 

Mr.  Belknap  was  genuinely  shocked. 
He  had  caught  the  war  fever  late  in  life, 
and  late  in  the  war,  and  his  son's  flip 
pancy  surprised  and  pained  him. 

"The  theatre?  We  don't  go  to  the 
theatre.  .  . "  He  paused  to  light  his  cigar, 
and  added,  embarrassed:  "Really,  Troy, 
now  there's  so  little  doing  here,  don't  you 
think  you  might  be  more  useful  in 
Italy?" 

Troy  was  anxious,  for  he  was  not  sure 
that  Mr.  Belknap's  influence  might  not 
be  sufficient  to  detach  him  from  his  job 
on  a  temporary  mission;  but  long  ex- 

[73] 


THE  MARNE 


perience  in  dealing  with  parents  made  him 
assume  a  greater  air  of  coolness  as  his 
fears  increased. 

"Well,  you  see,  father,  so  many  other 
chaps  have  taken  advantage  of  the  lull 
to  go  off  on  leave  that  if  I  asked  to  be 
detached  now — well,  it  wouldn't  do  me 
much  good  with  my  chief,"  he  said  cun 
ningly,  guessing  that  if  he  appeared  to 
yield  his  father  might  postpone  action. 

"Yes,  I  see,"  Mr.  Belknap  rejoined, 
impressed  by  the  military  character  of 
the  argument.  He  was  still  trying  to  get 
used  to  the  fact  that  he  was  himself 
under  orders,  and  nervous  visions  of  a 
sort  of  mitigated  court-martial  came  to 
him  in  the  middle  of  pleasant  dinners,  or 
jumped  him  out  of  his  morning  sleep  like 
an  alarm-clock. 

Troy  saw  that  his  point  was  gained; 
but  he  regretted  having  proposed  the 
Capucines  to  his  father.  He  himself  was 

174] 


THE  MARNE 


not  shocked  by  the  seeming  indifference 
of  Paris:  he  thought  the  gay  theatres, 
the  crowded  shops,  the  restaurants  groan 
ing  with  abundance,  were  all  healthy 
signs  of  the  nation's  irrepressible  vital 
ity.  But  he  understood  that  America's 
young  zeal  might  well  be  chilled  by  the 
first  contact  with  this  careless  exuberance 
so  close  to  the  lines  where  young  men 
like  himself  were  dying  day  by  day  in 
order  that  the  curtain  might  ring  up 
punctually  on  low-necked  revues,  and  fat 
neutrals  feast  undisturbed  on  lobster  and 
champagne.  Only  now  and  then  he 
asked  himself  what  had  become  of  the 
Paris  of  the  Marne,  and  what  would 

happen  if  ever  again But  that,  of 

course,  was  nonsense  .   .  . 

Mr.  Belknap  left  for  Italy — and  two 
days  afterward  Troy's  ambulance  was 
roused  from  semi-inaction  and  hurried  to 
Beauvais.  The  retreat  from  St.  Quentin 

[75] 


THE  MARNE 


had  begun,  and  Paris  was  once  again  the 
Paris  of  the  Marne. 

The  same — but  how  different! — were 
the  tense  days  that  followed.  Troy  Bel- 
knap,  instead  of  hanging  miserably 
about  marble  hotels  and  waiting  with 
restless  crowds  for  the  communiques  to 
appear  in  the  windows  of  the  newspaper 
offices,  was  in  the  thick  of  the  retreat, 
swept  back  on  its  tragic  tide,  his  heart 
wrung,  but  his  imagination  hushed  by  the 
fact  of  participating  in  the  struggle,  play 
ing  a  small  dumb  indefatigable  part, 
relieving  a  little  fraction  of  the  immense 
anguish  and  the  dreadful  disarray. 

The  mere  fact  of  lifting  a  wounded 
man  "so  that  it  wouldn't  hurt";  of  stiffen 
ing  one's  lips  to  a  smile  as  the  ambu 
lance  pulled  up  in  the  market-place  of 
a  terror-stricken  village;  or  calling  out 
"Nous  les  tenons!"  to  whimpering 
women  and  bewildered  old  people;  of 
giving  a  lift  to  a  family  of  foot-sore 

[76] 


THE  MARNE 


refugees;  of  prying  open  a  tin  of  con 
densed  milk  for  the  baby,  or  taking  down 
the  address  of  a  sister  in  Paris,  with  the 
promise  to  bring  her  news  of  the  fugi 
tives:  the  heat  and  the  burden  and  the 
individual  effort  of  each  minute  carried 
one  along  through  the  endless  yet  breath 
less  hours — backward  and  forward, 
backward  and  forward,  between  Paris 
and  the  fluctuating  front,  till  in  Troy's 
weary  brain  the  ambulance  took  on  the 
semblance  of  a  tireless  gray  shuttle  hum 
ming  in  the  hands  of  Fate  .  .  . 

It  was  on  one  of  these  trips  that,  for 
the  first  time,  he  saw  a  train-load  of 
American  soldiers  on  the  way  to  the  bat 
tle  front.  He  had,  of  course,  seen  plenty 
of  them  in  Paris  during  the  months  since 
his  arrival;  seen  them  vaguely  roaming 
the  streets,  or  sitting  in  front  of  cafes, 
or  wooed  by  polyglot  sirens  in  the  ob 
scure  promiscuity  of  cinema-palaces. 

At  first  he  had  seized  every  chance  of 


THE  MARNE 


talking  to  them;  but  either  his  own  shy 
ness  or  theirs  seemed  to  paralyze  him. 
He  found  them,  as  a  rule,  bewildered,  de 
pressed  and  unresponsive.  They  wanted 
to  kill  Germans  all  right,  they  said;  but 
this  hanging  around  Paris  wasn't  what 
they'd  bargained  for,  and  there  was  a 
good  deal  more  doing  back  home  at  Po- 
dunk  or  Tombstone  or  Deposit. 

It  was  not  only  the  soldiers  who  took 
this  depreciatory  view  of  France.  Some 
of  the  officers  whom  Troy  met  at  his 
friends7  houses  discouraged  him  more 
than  the  enlisted  men  with  whom  he  tried 
to  make  friends  in  the  cafes.  They  had 
more  definite  and  more  unfavourable 
opinions  as  to  the  country  they  had  come  to 
defend.  They  wanted  to  know,  in  God's 
name,  where  in  the  blasted  place  you 
could  get  fried  hominy  and  a  real  porter 
house  steak  for  breakfast,  and  when  the 
ball-game  season  began,  and  whether  it 

[78] 


THE  MARNE 


rained  every  day  all  the  year  round;  and 
Troy's  timid  efforts  to  point  out  some  of 
the  compensating  advantages  of  Paris 
failed  to  excite  any  lasting  interest. 

But  now  he  seemed  to  see  a  different 
race  of  men.  The  faces  leaning  from 
the  windows  of  the  train  glowed  with 
youthful  resolution.  The  soldiers  were 
out  on  their  real  business  at  last,  and  as 
Troy  looked  at  them,  so  alike  and  so 
innumerable,  he  had  the  sense  of  a  force 
inexorable  and  exhaustless,  poured  forth 
from  the  reservoirs  of  the  new  world 
to  replenish  the  wasted  veins  of  the  old. 

"Hooray!"  he  shouted  frantically, 
waving  his  cap  at  the  passing  train;  but 
as  it  disappeared  he  hung  his  head  and 
swore  under  his  breath.  There  they 
went,  his  friends  and  fellows,  as  he  had 
so  often  dreamed  of  seeing  them,  racing 
in  their  hundreds  of  thousands  to  the 
rescue  of  France;  and  he  was  still  too 

[79] 


THE  MARNE 


young  to  be  among  them,  and  could  only 
yearn  after  them  with  all  his  aching 
heart! 

After  a  hard  fortnight  of  day-and- 
night  work  he  was  ordered  a  few  days 
off,  and  sulkily  resigned  himself  to  inac 
tion.  For  the  first  twenty-four  hours  he 
slept  the  leaden  sleep  of  weary  youth,  and 
for  the  next  he  moped  on  his  bed  in  the 
infirmary;  but  the  third  day  he  crawled 
out  to  take  a  look  at  Paris. 

The  long-distance  bombardment  was 
going  on,  and  now  and  then,  at  irregular 
intervals,  there  was  a  more  or  less  remote 
crash,  followed  by  a  long  reverberation. 
But  the  life  of  the  streets  was  not  affected. 
People  went  about  their  business  as  usual, 
and  it  was  obvious  that  the  strained  look 
on  every  face  was  not  caused  by  the  ran 
dom  fall  of  a  few  shells,  but  by  the  per 
petual  vision  of  that  swaying  and  reced 
ing  line  on  which  all  men's  thoughts 
were  fixed.  It  was  sorrow,  not  fear,  that 

[so] 


THE  MARNE 


Troy  read  in  all  those  anxious  eyes :  sor 
row  over  so  much  wasted  effort,  such  high 
hopes  thwarted,  so  many  dear-bought 
miles  of  France  once  more  under  the  Ger 
man  heel. 

That  night  when  he  came  home  he 
found  a  letter  from  his  mother.  At  the 
very  end,  in  a  crossed  postscript,  he  read : 
"Who  do  you  suppose  sailed  last  week? 
Sophy  Wicks.  Soon  there'll  be  nobody 
left!  Old  Mrs.  Wicks  died  in  January 
— did  I  tell  you? — and  Sophy  has  sent 
the  children  to  Long  Island  with  their 
governess  and  rushed  over  to  do  Red 
Cross  nursing.  It  seems  she  had  taken 
a  course  at  the  Presbyterian  without  any 
one's  knowing  it.  I've  promised  to  keep 
an  eye  on  the  children.  Let  me  know  if 
you  see  her." 

Sophy  Wicks  in  France!  There  was 
hardly  room  in  his  troubled  mind  for 
the  news.  What  Sophy  Wicks  did  or  did 
not  do  had  shrunk  to  utter  insignificance 

DM] 


THE  MARNE 


in  the  crash  of  falling  worlds.  He  was 
rather  sorry  to  have  to  class  her  with  the 
other  hysterical  girls  fighting  for  a  pre 
text  to  get  to  France;  but  what  did  it  all 
matter,  anyhow?  On  the  way  home  he 
had  overheard  an  officer  in  the  street 
telling  a  friend  that  the  Germans  were 
at  Creil  .  .  . 

Then  came  the  day  when  the  advance 
was  checked.  General  Mangin's  glorious 
counter-attack  gave  France  new  faith  in 
her  armies,  and  Paris,  irrepressibly,  burst 
at  once  into  abounding  life.  It  was  as  if 
she  were  ashamed  of  having  doubted,  as 
if  she  wanted,  by  a  livelier  renewal  of 
activities,  to  proclaim  her  unshakable 
faith  in  her  defenders.  In  the  perpetual 
sunshine  of  the  most  golden  of  springs 
she  basked  and  decked  herself,  and  mir 
rored  her  recovered  beauty  in  the  Seine. 

And  still  the  cloudless  weeks  succeeded 
each  other,  days  of  blue  warmth  and 
nights  of  silver  lustre;  and  still,  behind 

[82] 


THE  MARNE 


the  impenetrable  wall  of  the  front,  the 
Beast  dumbly  lowered  and  waited.  Then 
one  morning,  toward  the  end  of  May, 
Troy,  waking  late  after  an  unusually 
hard  day,  read:  "The  new  German 
offensive  has  begun.  The  Chemin  des 
Dames  has  been  retaken  by  the  enemy. 
Our  valiant  troops  are  resisting  heroic 
ally  ..." 

Ah,  now  indeed  they  were  on  the  road 
to  Paris ! 

In  a  flash  of  horror  he  saw  it  all.  The 
bitter  history  of  the  war  was  re-enacting 
itself,  and  the  battle  of  the  Marne  was 
to  be  fought  again  .  .  . 

The  misery  of  the  succeeding  days 
would  have  been  intolerable  if  there  had 
been  time  to  think  of  it.  But  day  and 
night  there  was  no  respite  for  Troy's 
service;  and,  being  at  this  time  a  practised 
hand,  he  had  to  be  continually  on  the 
road. 

On  the  second  day  he  received  orders 

[83] 


THE  MARNE 


to  evacuate  wounded  from  an  American 
base  hospital  near  the  Marne.  It  was 
actually  the  old  battle-ground  he  was  to 
traverse;  only,  before  he  had  traversed 
it  in  the  wake  of  the  German  retreat,  and 
now  it  was  the  allied  troops  who,  slowly, 
methodically,  and  selling  every  inch  dear, 
were  falling  back  across  the  sacred  soil. 
Troy  faced  eastward  with  a  heavy 
heart  .  .  . 


[84  J 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  next  morning  at  daylight  they 
started  for  the  front. 

Troy's  breast  swelled  with  the  sense 
of  the  approach  to  something  bigger 
than  he  had  yet  known.  The  air  of 
Paris,  that  day,  was  heavy  with  doom. 
There  was  no  mistaking  its  taste  on  the 
lips.  It  was  the  air  of  the  Marne  that 
he  was  breathing  .  .  . 

Here  he  was,  once  more  involved  in 
one  of  the  great  convulsions  of  destiny, 
and  still  almost  as  helpless  a  spectator  as 
when,  four  years  before,  he  had  strayed 
the  burning  desert  of  Paris,  and  cried  out 
in  his  boy's  heart  for  a  share  in  the 
drama.  Almost  as  helpless,  yes:  in  spite 
of  his  four  more  years,  his  grown-up 
responsibilities,  and  the  blessed  uniform 
thanks  to  which  he,  even  he,  a  poor  little 
ambulance-driver  of  nineteen,  ranked  as 

[85] 


THE  MARNE 


a  soldier  of  the  great  untried  army  of 
his  country.  It  was  something — it  was 
a  great  deal — to  be  even  the  humblest 
part,  the  most  infinitesimal  cog,  in  that 
mighty  machinery  of  the  future;  but  it 
was  not  enough,  at  this  turning  point  of 
history,  for  one  who  had  so  lived  it  all 
in  advance,  who  was  so  aware  of  it  now 
that  it  had  come,  who  had  carried  so 
long  on  his  lips  the  taste  of  its  scarcely 
breathable  air  ... 

As  the  ambulance  left  the  gates  of 
Paris,  and  hurried  eastward  in  the  gray 
dawn,  this  sense  of  going  toward  some 
thing  new  and  overwhelming  continued 
to  grow  in  Troy.  It  was  probably  the 
greatest  hour  of  the  war  that  was  about 
to  strike — and  he  was  still  too  young  to 
give  himself  to  the  cause  he  had  so  long 
dreamed  of  serving  .  .  . 

From  the  moment  they  left  the  gates 
the  road  was  encumbered  with  huge 
gray  motor-trucks,  limousines,  motor- 

[86] 


THE  MARNE 


cycles,  long  trains  of  artillery,  army 
kitchens,  supply  waggons,  all  the  familiar 
elements  of  the  procession  he  had  so 
often  watched  unrolling  itself  endlessly 
east  and  west  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Alps.  Nothing  new  in  the  sight — but 
something  new  in  the  faces !  A  look  of 
having  got  beyond  the  accident  of  living, 
and  accepted  what  lay  over  the  edge,  in 
the  dim  land  of  the  final.  He  had  seen 
that  look  too  in  the  days  before  the 
Marne  .  .  . 

Most  of  the  faces  on  the  way  were 
French:  as  far  as  Epernay  they  met  their 
compatriots  only  in  isolated  groups.  But 
whenever  one  of  the  motor-trucks  lum 
bering  by  bore  a  big  U.  S.  on  its  rear 
panel  Troy  pushed  his  light  ambulance 
ahead  and  skimmed  past,  just  for  the 
joy  of  seeing  the  fresh  young  heads  ris 
ing  pyramid-wise  'above  the  sides  of  the 
lorry,  hearing  the  snatches  of  familiar 
songs — "Hail,  hail,  the  gang's  all  here!" 

[87] 


THE  MARNE 


and  "We  won't  come  back  till  it's  over 
over  here !" — and  shouting  back  in  reply 
to  a  stentorian  "Hi,  kid,  beat  it  I",  "Bet 
your  life  I  will,  old  man!" 

Hubert  Jacks,  the  young  fellow  who 
was  with  him,  shouted  back  too,  as 
lustily;  but  between  times  he  was  more 
occupied  with  the  details  of  their  own 
particular  job — to  which  he  was  newer 
than  Troy — and  seemed  not  to  feel  so  in 
tensely  the  weight  of  impending  events. 

As  they  neared  the  Montmirail  monu 
ment:  "Ever  been  over  this  ground  be 
fore?"  Troy  asked  carelessly. 

And  Jacks  answered:  "N-no." 

"Ah — I  have.  I  was  here  just  after 
the  battle  of  the  Marne,  in  September, 
'fourteen." 

"That  so?  You  must  have  been  quite 
a  kid,"  said  Jacks  with  indifference,  filling 
his  pipe. 

"Well — not  quite"  Troy  rejoined 
sulkily;  and  they  said  no  more. 

[88] 


THE  MARNE 


At  Epernay  they  stopped  for  lunch, 
and  found  the  place  swarming  with 
troops.  Troy's  soul  was  bursting  within 
him:  he  wanted  to  talk  and  remember 
and  compare.  But  his  companion  was 
unimaginative,  and  perhaps  a  little  jeal 
ous  of  his  greater  experience.  "He 
doesn't  want  to  show  that  he's  new  at  the 
job,"  Troy  decided. 

They  lunched  together  in  a  corner  of 
the  packed  restaurant,  and  while  they 
were  taking  coffee  some  French  officers 
came  up  and  chatted  with  Troy.  To  all 
of  them  he  felt  the  desperate  need  of 
explaining  that  he  was  driving  an  am 
bulance  only  because  he  was  still  too 
young  to  be  among  the  combatants. 

"But  I  sha'n't  be — soon!"  he  always 
added,  in  the  tone  of  one  who  affirms: 
"It's  merely  a  matter  of  a  few  weeks 


now." 


"Oh,  you  all  look  like  babies — but  you 
all  fight  like  devils,"  said  a  young  French 


THE  MARNE 


lieutenant  seasoned  by  four  years  at  the 
front;  and  another  officer  added  gravely: 
"Make  haste  to  be  old  enough,  cher  Mon 
sieur.  We  need  you  all — every  one  of 
you  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  we're  coming — we're  all  com 
ing!"  Troy  cried. 

That  evening  after  a  hard  and  har 
rowing  day's  work  between  pastes  de 
secours  and  a  base  hospital,  they  found 
themselves  in  a  darkened  village,  where, 
after  a  summary  meal  under  flying  shells, 
someone  suggested  ending  up  at  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut. 

The  shelling  had  ceased,  and  there 
seemed  nothing  better  to  do  than  to 
wander  down  the  dark  street  to  the  un 
derground  shelter  packed  with  American 
soldiers.  Troy  was  sleepy  and  tired,  and 
would  have  preferred  to  crawl  into  his 
bed  at  the  inn ;  he  felt,  more  keenly  than 
ever,  the  humiliation  (the  word  was 
stupid,  but  he  could  find  no  other)  of 

[90] 


THE  MARNE 


being  among  all  these  young  men,  only 
a  year  or  two  his  seniors,  and  none,  he 
was  sure,  more  passionately  eager  than 
himself  for  the  work  that  lay  ahead,  and 
yet  so  hopelessly  divided  from  him  by 
that  stupid  difference  in  age.  But  Hu 
bert  Jacks  was  seemingly  unconscious  of 
this,  and  only  desirous  of  ending  his 
night  cheerfully.  It  would  have  looked 
unfriendly  not  to  accompany  him,  so  they 
pushed  their  way  together  through  the 
cellar  door  surmounted  by  the  sociable 
red  triangle. 

It  was  a  big  cellar,  but  brown  uni 
forms  and  ruddy  faces  crowded  it  from 
wall  to  wall.  In  one  corner  the  men 
were  sitting  on  packing  boxes  at  a  long 
table  made  of  boards  laid  across  barrels, 
the  smoky  light  of  little  oil-lamps  red 
dening  their  cheeks  and  deepening  the 
furrows  in  their  white  foreheads  as  they 
laboured  over  their  correspondence. 
Others  were  playing  checkers,  or  looking 

[91] 


THE  MARNE 


at  the  illustrated  papers,  and  everybody 
was  smoking  and  talking — not  in  large 
groups,  but  quietly,  by  twos  or  threes. 
Young  women  in  trig  uniforms,  with 
fresh  innocent  faces,  moved  among  the 
barrels  and  boxes,  distributing  stamps  or 
books,  chatting  with  the  soldiers,  and 
being  generally  home-like  and  sisterly. 
The  men  gave  them  back  glances  as 
honest,  and  almost  as  innocent,  and  an 
air  of  simple  daylight  friendliness  per 
vaded  the  Avernian  cave. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Troy  had 
ever  seen  a  large  group  of  his  com 
patriots  so  close  to  the  fighting  front,  and 
in  an  hour  of  ease,  and  he  was  struck 
by  the  gravity  of  the  young  faces,  and 
the  low  tones  of  their  talk.  Everything 
was  in  a  minor  key.  No  one  was  laugh 
ing  or  singing  or  larking;  the  note  was 
that  which  might  have  prevailed  in  a  club 
of  quiet  elderly  men,  or  in  a  drawing- 
room  where  the  guests  did  not  know  each 

[92] 


THE  MARNE 


other  well.  Troy  was  all  the  more  sur 
prised  because  he  remembered  the  jolly 
calls  of  the  young  soldiers  in  the  motor 
trucks,  and  the  songs  and  horse-play  of 
the  gangs  of  trench-diggers  and  hut- 
builders  he  had  passed  on  the  way.  Was 
it  that  his  compatriots  did  not  know  how 
to  laugh  when  they  were  at  leisure,  or 
was  it  rather  that  in  the  intervals  of 
work  the  awe  of  the  unknown  laid  its 
hand  on  these  untried  hearts? 

Troy  and  Jacks  perched  on  a  packing 
box,  and  talked  a  little  with  their  neigh 
bours;  but  suddenly  they  were  inter 
rupted  by  the  noise  of  a  motor  stopping 
outside.  There  was  a  stir  at  the  mouth 
of  the  cavern,  and  a  girl  said  eagerly: 
"Here  she  comes!" 

Instantly  the  cellar  woke  up.  The  sol 
diers'  faces  grew  young  again,  they  flat 
tened  themselves  laughingly  against  the 
walls  of  the  entrance,  the  door  above 
was  cautiously  opened,  and  a  girl  in  a 

[93] 


THE  MARNE 


long  blue  cloak  appeared  at  the  head  of 
the  stairs. 

"Well,  boys — you  see  I  managed 
it!"  she  cried;  and  Troy  instantly  recog 
nized  the  piercing  accents  and  azure  gaze 
of  Miss  Hinda  Warlick. 

"She  managed  it!"  the  whole  cellar 
roared  as  one  man,  drowning  her  answer 
in  a  cheer:  and  "Of  course  I  did!"  she 
continued,  laughing  and  nodding  right 
and  left  as  she  made  her  triumphant  way 
down  the  lane  of  khaki  to  what,  at  her 
appearance,  had  somehow  instantly  be 
come  the  stage  at  the  farther  end  of  a 
packed  theatre.  The  elderly  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
official  who  accompanied  her  puffed  out 
his  chest  like  a  general,  and  blinked  know 
ingly  behind  his  gold  eye-glasses. 

Troy's  first  movement  had  been  one 
of  impatience.  He  hated  all  that  Miss 
Warlick  personified,  and  hated  it  most 
of  all  on  this  sacred  soil,  and  at  this  fate 
ful  moment,  with  the  iron  wings  of  doom 

[94] 


THE  MARNE 


clanging  so  close  above  their  heads.  But 
it  would  have  been  almost  impossible  to 
fight  his  way  out  through  the  crowd  that 
had  closed  in  behind  her — and  he  stayed. 

The  cheering  subsided,  she  gained  her 
improvised  platform — a  door  laid  on 
some  biscuit-boxes — and  the  recitation 
began. 

She  gave  them  all  sorts  of  things, 
ranging  from  grave  to  gay,  and  extract 
ing  from  the  sentimental  numbers  a 
peculiarly  piercing  effect  that  hurt  Troy 
like  the  twinge  of  a  dental  instrument. 
And  her  audience  loved  it  all,  indis 
criminately  and  voraciously,  with  souls 
hungry  for  the  home-flavour  and  long 
nurtured  on  what  Troy  called  "cereal- 
fiction."  One  had  to  admit  that  Miss 
Warlick  knew  her  public,  and  could  play 
on  every  cord. 

It  might  have  been  funny,  if  it  had  not 
been  so  infinitely  touching.  They  were 
all  so  young,  so  serious,  so  far  from 

[95] 


THE  MARNE 


home,  and  bound  on  a  quest  so  glorious ! 
And  there  overhead,  just  above  them, 
brooded  and  clanged  the  black  wings  of 
their  doom.  .  .  Troy's  mockery  was  soft 
ened  to  tenderness,  and  he  felt,  under  the 
hard  shell  of  his  youthful  omniscience, 
the  stir  of  all  the  things  to  which  the 
others  were  unconsciously  responding. 

"And  now,  by  special  request,  Miss 
Warlick  is  going  to  say  a  few  words," — 
the  elderly  eye-glassed  officer  importantly 
announced. 

Ah,  what  a  pity!  If  only  she  had 
ended  on  that  last  jolly  chorus,  so  full 
of  artless  laughter  and  tears !  Troy  re 
membered  her  dissertations  on  the 
steamer,  and  winced  at  a  fresh  display 
of  such  fatuity,  in  such  a  scene. 

She  had  let  the  cloak  slip  from  her 
shoulders,  and  stepped  to  the  edge  of  her 
unsteady  stage.  Her  eyes  burned  large 
in  a  face  grown  suddenly  grave.  .  .  For 
a  moment  she  reminded  him  again  of 

[96] 


THE  MARNE 


Sophy  Wicks.  "Only  a  few  words, 
really,"  she  began,  apologetically;  and 
the  cellar  started  a  cheer  of  protest. 

"No — not  that  kind.  Something  dif 
ferent  ..." 

She  paused  long  enough  to  let  the 
silence  prepare  them:  sharp  little  artist 
that  she  was !  Then  she  leaned  forward. 
"This  is  what  I  want  to  say:  I've  come 
from  the  French  front — pretty  near 
the  edge.  They're  dying  there,  boys — 
dying  by  thousands,  now,  this  minute. 
.  .  .  But  that's  not  it.  I  know :  you  want 
me  to  cut  it  out — and  I'm  going  to.  .  . 
But  this  is  why  I  began  that  way:  because 
it  was  my  first  sight  of — things  of  that 
sort.  And  I  had  to  tell  you — " 

She  stopped,  pale,  her  pretty  mouth 
twitching. 

"What  I  really  wanted  to  say  is  this : 
Since  I  came  to  Europe,  nearly  a  year 
ago,  I've  got  to  know  the  country  they're 
dying  for — and  I  understand  why  they 

[97] 


THE  MARNE 


mean  to  go  on  and  on  dying — if  they 
have  to — till  there  isn't  one  of  them  left. 
Boys — I  know  France  now — and  she's 
worth  it !  Don't  you  make  any  mistake  1 
I  have  to  laugh  now  when  I  remember 
what  I  thought  of  France  when  I  landed. 
My!  How  d'you  suppose  she  got  on  so 
long  without  us?  Done  a  few  things 
too — poor  little  toddler!  Well — it  was 
time  we  took  her  by  the  hand,  and 
showed  her  how  to  behave.  And  I 
wasn't  the  only  one  either.  I  guess  most 
of  us  thought  we'd  have  to  teach  her 
her  letters.  Maybe  some  of  you  boys 
right  here  felt  that  way  too?" 

A  guilty  laugh,  and  loud  applause. 

"Thought  so,"  said  Miss  Warlick 
smiling. 

"Well,"  she  continued,  "there  wasn't 
hardly  anything  I  wasn't  ready  to  teach 
them.  On  the  steamer  coming  out  with 
us  there  was  a  lot  of  those  Amb'lance 
boys.  My!  How  I  gassed  to  them.  I 

[98] 


THE  MARNE 


said  the  French  had  got  to  be  taught  how 
to  love  their  mothers — I  said  they  hadn't 
any  home-feeling — and  didn't  love  chil 
dren  the  way  we  do.  I've  been  round 
among  them  some  since  then,  in  the  hos 
pitals,  and  I've  seen  fellows  lying  there 
shot  'most  to  death,  and  their  little  old 
mothers  in  white  caps  arriving  from  'way 
off  at  the  other  end  of  France.  Well, 
those  fellows  know  how  to  see  their 
mothers  coming  even  if  they're  blind,  and 
how  to  hug  'em  even  if  their  arms  are  off. 
.  . .  And  the  children — the  way  they  go  on 
about  the  children!  Ever  seen  a  French 
soldier  yet  that  didn't  have  a  photograph 
of  a  baby  stowed  away  somewhere  in 
his  dirty  uniform?  /  never  have.  I  tell 
you,  they're  white!  And  they're  fighting 
as  only  people  can  who  feel  that  way 
about  mothers  and  babies.  The  way 
we're  going  to  fight;  and  maybe  we'll 
prove  it  to  'em  sooner  than  any  of  us 
think  .  .  . 

[99] 


THE  MARNE 


"Anyhow,  I  wanted  to  get  this  off  my 
chest  tonight;  not  for  you,  only  for  my 
self.  I  didn't  want  to  have  a  shell  get  me 
before  I'd  said  'Veever  la  France  P  be 
fore  all  of  you. 

"See  here,  boys — the  MarsellazeP' 
She   snatched   a   flag   from   the   wall, 
drawing  herself  up  to  heroic  height;  and 
the  whole  cellar  joined  her  in  a  roar. 


[100] 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  next  morning  Jacks  dragged 
Troy  out  of  bed  by  the  feet.  The  room 
was  still  dark,  and  through  the  square 
of  the  low  window  glittered  a  bunch  of 
stars. 

"Hurry  call  to  Montmirail  —  step 
lively!"  Jacks  ordered,  his  voice  thick 
with  sleep. 

All  the  old  names:  with  every  turn  of 
the  wheel  they  seemed  to  be  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  ravaged  spot 
of  earth  where  Paul  Gantier  slept  his 
faithful  sleep.  Strange  if,  today,  of  all 
days,  Troy  should  again  stand  by  his 
friend's  grave! 

They  pushed  along  eastward  under 
the  last  stars,  the  roll  of  the  cannon 
crashing  through  the  quiet  dawn.  The 
birds  flew  up  with  frightened  cries  from 

[101] 


THE  MAKNE 


the  trees  along  the  roadside :  rooks  cawed 
their  warning  from  clump  to  clump,  and 
gathered  in  the  sky  in  dark  triangles  fly 
ing  before  the  danger. 

The  east  began  to  redden  through  the 
dust-haze  of  the  cloudless  air.  As  they 
advanced  the  road  became  more  and 
more  crowded,  and  the  ambulance  was 
caught  in  the  usual  dense  traffic  of  the 
front:  artillery,  field-kitchens,  motor 
trucks,  horse-waggons,  hay-carts  packed 
with  refugees,  and  popping  motor-cycles 
zig-zagging  through  the  tangle  of  ve 
hicles.  The  movement  seemed  more 
feverish  and  uncertain  than  usual,  and 
now  and  then  the  road  was  jammed,  and 
curses,  shouts,  and  the  crack  of  heavy 
whips  sounded  against  the  incessant  can 
nonade  that  hung  its  iron  curtain  above 
the  hills  to  the  north-east.  The  faces  of 
soldiers  and  officers  were  unshaved,  sal 
low,  drawn  with  fatigue  and  anxiety. 
Women  sat  sobbing  on  their  piled-up 

[102] 


THE  MARNE 


baggage,  and  here  and  there,  by  the  road 
side,  a  little  country  cart  had  broken 
down,  and  the  occupants  sat  on  the  bank 
watching  the  confusion  like  impassive 
lookers-on. 

Suddenly,  in  the  thickest  of  the  struggle, 
a  heavy  lorry  smashed  into  Troy's  am-    , 
bulance,    and   he    felt   the   unmistakable   >* 
wrench   of  the  steering-gear.     The   carl 
shook  like   a  careening  boat,   and  then 
righted  herself  and  stopped. 

"Oh,  hell!"  shouted  Jacks  in  a  fury. 

The  two  lads  jumped  down,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  they  saw  that  they  were 
stranded  beyond  remedy.  Tears  of 
anger  rushed  into  Troy's  eyes.  On  this 
day  of  days  he  was  not  even  to  accom 
plish  his  own  humble  job! 

Another  ambulance  of  their  own  for 
mation  overtook  them,  and  it  was  agreed 
that  Jacks,  who  was  the  sharper  of  the 
two,  was  to  get  a  lift  to  the  nearest  town, 
and  try  to  bring  back  a  spare  part,  or, 


THE  MARNE 


failing  that,  pick  up  some  sort  of  car,  in 
which  they  could  continue  their  work. 

Troy  was  left  by  the  roadside.  Hour 
after  hour  he  sat  there  waiting  and  curs 
ing  his  fate.  When  would  Jacks  be  back 
again?  Not  at  all,  most  likely;  it  was 
ten  to  one  he  would  be  caught  on  the 
way  and  turned  into  some  pressing  job. 
He  knew,  and  Troy  knew,  that  their  am 
bulance  was  for  the  time  being  a  hope 
less  wreck,  and  would  probably  have  to 
stick  ignominiously  in  its  ditch  till  some 
one  could  go  and  fetch  a  new  axle  from 
Paris.  And  meanwhile,  what  might  not 
be  happening  nearer  by? 

The  rumble  and  thump  of  the  can 
nonade  grew  more  intense :  a  violent 
engagement  was  evidently  going  on  not 
far  off.  Troy  pulled  out  his  map  and 
tried  to  calculate  how  far  he  was  from 
the  front;  but  the  front  at  that  point 
was  a  wavering  and  incalculable  line.  He 
had  an  idea  that  the  fighting  was  much 

[104] 


THE  MARNE 


nearer  than  he  or  Jacks  had  imagined. 
The  place  at  which  they  had  broken 
down  must  be  about  fifteen  miles  from 
the  Marne.  But  could  it  be  possible  that 
the  Germans  had  crossed  the  Marne? 

Troy  grew  hungry,  and  thrust  his  hand 
in  his  pocket  to  pull  out  a  sandwich. 
With  it  came  a  letter  of  his  mother's, 
carried  off  in  haste  when  he  left  Paris 
the  previous  morning.  He  re-read  it 
with  a  mournful  smile.  "Of  course  we 
all  know  the  Allies  must  win;  but  the 
preparations  here  seem  so  slow  and 
blundering;  and  the  Germans  are  still  so 
strong.  .  ."  (Thump,  thump,  the  artil 
lery  echoed :  "Strong!")  And  just  at  the 
end  of  the  letter,  again,  "I  do  wonder  if 
you'll  run  across  Sophy  .  .  ." 

He  lit  a  cigarette  and  shut  his  eyes  and 
thought.  The  sight  of  Miss  Warlick 
had  made  Sophy  Wicks'  presence  singu 
larly  vivid  to  him;  he  had  fallen  asleep 
thinking  of  her  the  night  before.  How 


THE  MARNE 


like  her  to  have  taken  a  course  at  the 
Presbyterian  Hospital  without  letting 
anyone  know !  He  wondered  that  he 
had  not  suspected,  under  her  mocking  in 
difference,  an  ardour  as  deep  as  his  own, 
and  he  was  ashamed  of  having  judged 
her  as  others  had,  when,  for  so  long,  the 
thought  of  her  had  been  his  torment  and 
his  joy.  Where  was  she  now,  he  won 
dered?  Probably  in  some  hospital  in  the 
south  of  the  centre:  the  authorities  did 
not  let  beginners  get  near  the  front, 
though  of  course  it  was  what  all  the  girls 
were  mad  for.  .  .  Well,  Sophy  would  do 
her  work  wherever  it  was  assigned  to 
her:  he  did  not  see  her  intriguing  for  a 
showy  post 

Troy  began  to  marvel  again  at  the 
spell  of  France — his  France!  Here  was 
a  girl  who  had  certainly  not  come  in 
quest  of  vulgar  excitement,  as  so  many 
did:  Sophy  had  always  kept  herself 
scornfully  aloof  from  the  pretty  ghouls 

[106] 


THE  MARNE 


who  danced  and  picnicked  on  the  ruins 
of  the  world.  He  knew  that  her  motives, 
so  jealously  concealed,  must  have  been 
as  pure  and  urgent  as  his  own.  France, 
which  she  hardly  knew,  had  merely 
guessed  at  through  the  golden  blur  of  a 
six  weeks'  midsummer  trip,  France  had 
drawn  her  with  an  irresistible  pressure; 
and  the  moment  she  had  felt  herself  free 
she  had  come.  "Whither  thou  goest  I 
will  go;  ...  thy  people  shall  be  my 
people  ..."  Yes,  France  was  the 
Naomi-country  that  had  but  to  beckon, 
and  her  children  rose  and  came  .  .  . 

Troy  was  exceedingly  tired;  he 
stretched  himself  on  the  dusty  bank,  and 
the  noise  of  the  road  traffic  began  to 
blend  with  the  cannonade  in  his  whirling 
brain.  Suddenly  he  fancied  the  Germans 
were  upon  him.  He  thought  he  heard 
the  peppering  volley  of  machine-guns, 
shouts,  screams,  rifle-shots  close  at 
hand  .  .  . 


THE  MARNE 


He  sat  up  and  rubbed  his  eyes. 

What  he  had  heard  was  the  cracking 
of  whips  and  the  shouting  of  carters 
urging  tired  farm-horses  along.  Down  a 
by-road  to  his  left  a  stream  of  haggard 
country  people  was  pouring  from  the 
direction  of  the  Marne.  This  time  only 
a  few  were  in  carts :  the  greater  number 
were  flying  on  their  feet,  the  women  car 
rying  their  babies,  the  old  people  bent 
under  preposterous  bundles,  blankets, 
garden  utensils,  cages  with  rabbits,  an 
agricultural  prize  framed  and  glazed,  a 
wax  wedding-wreath  under  a  broken 
globe.  Sick  and  infirm  people  were 
dragged  and  shoved  along  by  the  older 
children:  a  goitred  idiot  sat  in  a  wheel 
barrow  pushed  by  a  girl,  and  laughed 
and  pulled  its  tongue  .  .  . 

In  among  the  throng  Troy  began  to 
see  the  torn  blue  uniform  of  wounded 
soldiers  limping  on  bandaged  legs.  .  . 
Others  too,  not  wounded,  elderly  hag- 

[108] 


THE  MARNE 


gard  territorials,  with  powder-black 
faces,  bristling  beards,  and  the  horror  of 
the  shell-roar  in  their  eyes.  .  .  One  of 
them  stopped  near  Troy,  and  in  a  thick 
voice  begged  for  a  drink  .  .  .  just  a  drop 
of  anything,  for  God's  sake.  Others  fol 
lowed,  pleading  for  food  and  drink. 
"Gas,  gas,"  .  .  a  young  artilleryman 
gasped  at  him  through  distorted  lips.  .  . 
The  Germans  were  over  the  Marne,  they 
told  him,  the  Germans  were  coming.  It 
was  hell  back  there,  no  one  could  stand 
it  ... 

Troy  ransacked  the  ambulance,  found 
water,  brandy,  biscuits,  condensed  milk, 
and  set  up  an  impromptu  canteen.  But 
the  people  who  had  clustered  about  him 
were  pushed  forward  by  others,  crying: 
"Are  you  mad  to  stay  here?  The  Ger 
mans  are  coming!'- — and  in  a  feeble  panic 
they  pressed  on. 

One  old  man  trembling  with  fatigue, 
and  dragging  a  shaking  little  old  woman, 

[109] 


THE  MARNE 


had  spied  the  stretcher  beds  inside  the 
ambulance,  and  without  asking  leave, 
scrambled  in  and  pulled  his  wife  after 
him.  They  fell  like  logs  onto  the  gray 
blankets,  and  a  livid  territorial  with  a 
bandaged  arm  drenched  in  blood  crawled 
in  after  them  and  sank  on  the  floor.  The 
rest  of  the  crowd  had  surged  by. 

As  he  was  helping  the  wounded  sol 
dier  to  settle  himself  in  the  ambulance, 
Troy  heard  a  new  sound  down  the  road. 
It  was  a  deep,  continuous  rumble,  the 
rhythmic  growl  of  a  long  train  of  army- 
trucks.  The  way  must  have  been  cleared 
to  let  them  by,  for  there  was  no  break 
or  faltering  in  the  ever-deepening  roar 
of  their  approach. 

A  cloud  of  dust  rolled  ahead,  growing 
in  volume  with  the  growing  noise;  now 
the  first  trucks  were  in  sight,  huge 
square  olive-brown  motor-trucks  stacked 
high  with  scores  and  scores  of  bronzed 
soldiers.  Troy  jumped  to  his  feet  with 

[no] 


THE  MARNE 


a  shout.  It  was  an  American  regiment 
being  rushed  to  the  front ! 

The  refugees  and  the  worn-out  blue 
soldiers  fell  back  before  the  triumphant 
advance,  and  a  weak  shout  went  up. 
The  bronzed  soldiers  shouted  back,  but 
their  faces  were  grave  and  set.  It  was 
clear  that  they  knew  where  they  were 
going,  and  to  what  work  they  had  been 
so  hurriedly  summoned. 

"It's  hell  back  there!"  a  wounded  ter 
ritorial  called  out,  pointing  backward 
over  his  bandaged  shoulder,  and  another 
cried:  "V'we  VAmerique!" 

"Vwe  la  France!"  shouted  the  truckful 
abreast  of  Troy,  and  the  same  cry  burst 
from  his  own  lungs.  A  few  miles  off  the 
battle  of  the  Marne  was  being  fought 
again,  and  there  were  his  own  brothers 
rushing  forward  to  help!  He  felt  that 
his  greatest  hour  had  struck. 

One  of  the  trucks  had  halted  for  a 

[HI] 


THE  MARNE 


minute  just  in  front  of  him,  marking  time, 
and  the  lads  leaning  over  its  side  had 
seen  him,  and  were  calling  out  friendly 
college  yells. 

"Come  along  and  help!"  cried  one,  as 
the  truck  got  under  way  again. 

Troy  glanced  at  his  broken-down 
motor;  then  his  eye  lit  on  a  rifle  lying 
close  by  in  the  dust  of  the  road-side.  He 
supposed  it  belonged  to  the  wounded  ter 
ritorial  who  had  crawled  into  the  ambu 
lance. 

He  caught  up  the  rifle,  scrambled  up 
over  the  side  with  the  soldier's  help,  and 
was  engulphed  among  his  brothers.  Fur 
tively,  he  had  pulled  the  ambulance  badge 
from  his  collar  .  .  .  but  a  moment  later 
he  realized  the  uselessness  of  the  precau 
tion.  All  that  mattered  to  anyone  just 
then  was  that  he  was  one  more  rifle  for 
the  front  .  ,  . 


[112] 


CHAPTER  XI 

ON  the  way  he  tried  to  call  up  half- 
remembered  snatches  of  military  lore. 
If  only  he  did  not  disgrace  them  by  a 
blunder ! 

He  had  talked  enough  to  soldiers, 
French  and  American,  in  the  last  year: 
he  recalled  odd  bits  of  professional  wis 
dom,  but  he  was  too  excited  to  piece 
them  together.  He  was  not  in  the  least 
afraid  of  being  afraid,  but  his  heart 
sank  at  the  dread  of  doing  something 
stupid,  inopportune,  idiotic.  His  envy 
of  the  youths  beside  him  turned  to  ven 
eration.  They  had  all  been  in  the  front 
line,  and  knew  its  vocabulary,  its  dangers 
and  its  dodges.  All  he  could  do  was  to 
watch  and  imitate  .  .  . 

Presently  they  were  all  tumbled  out 
of  the  motors  and  drawn  up  by  the  road- 

[113] 


THE  MARNE 


side.  An  officer  bawled  unintelligible 
orders,  and  the  men  executed  mysterious 
movements  in  obedience. 

Troy  crept  close  to  the  nearest  soldier 
and  copied  his  gestures  awkwardly — but 
no  one  noticed.  Night  had  fallen,  and 
he  was  thankful  for  the  darkness.  Per 
haps  by  tomorrow  morning  he  would 
have  picked  up  a  few  of  their  tricks. 
Meanwhile,  apparently,  all  he  had  to  do 
was  to  march,  march,  march,  at  a  sort 
of  break-neck  trot  that  the  others  took 
as  lightly  as  one  skims  the  earth  in  a 
dream.  If  it  had  not  been  for  his  pump 
ing  heart  and  his  aching  bursting  feet 
Troy  at  moments  would  have  thought  it 
was  a  dream  .  .  . 

Rank  by  rank  they  pressed  forward  in 
the  night  toward  a  sky-line  torn  with  in 
termittent  flame. 

"We're  going  toward  a  battle,"  Troy 
sang  to  himself,  "toward  a  battle,  to 
ward  a  battle  .  .  ."  But  the  words  meant 

[114] 


THE  MARNE 


no  more  to  him  than  the  doggerel  the 
soldier  was  chanting  at  his  elbow  .   .   . 

They  were  in  a  wood,  slipping  forward 
cautiously,  beating  their  way  through  the 
under-growth.  The  night  had  grown 
cloudy,  but  now  and  then  the  clouds 
broke,  and  a  knot  of  stars  clung  to  a 
branch  like  swarming  bees. 

At  length  a  halt  was  called  in  a  clear 
ing,  and  then  the  group  to  which  Troy 
had  attached  himself  was  ordered  for 
ward.  He  did  not  understand  the  order, 
but  seeing  the  men  moving  he  followed, 
like  a  mascot  dog  trotting  after  its  com 
pany;  and  they  began  to  beat  their  way 
onward,  still  more  cautiously,  in  little 
crawling  lines  of  three  or  four.  It  re 
minded  Troy  of  "playing  Indian"  in  his 
childhood. 

"Careful  .  .  .  watch  out  for  'em  I"  the 
soldier  next  to  him  whispered,  clutching 
his  arm  at  a  noise  in  the  underbrush;  and 


THE  MARNE 


Troy's  heart  jerked  back  violently, 
though  his  legs  were  still  pressing  for 
ward. 

They  were  here,  then:  they  might  be 
close  by  in  the  blackness,  behind  the  next 
tree-bole,  in  the  next  clump  of  bushes— •- 
the  destroyers  of  France,  old  M.  Gan- 
tier's  murderers,  the  enemy  to  whom 
Paul  Gantier  had  given  his  life !  These 
thoughts  slipped  confusedly  through 
Troy's  mind,  scarcely  brushing  it  with  a 
chill  wing.  His  main  feeling  was  one 
of  a  base  physical  fear,  and  of  a  newly- 
awakened  moral  energy  which  had  the 
fear  by  the  throat  and  held  it  down  with 
shaking  hands.  Which  of  the  two  would 
conquer,  how  many  yards  farther  would 
the  resolute  Troy  drag  on  the  limp  cow 
ard  through  this  murderous  wood?  That 
was  the  one  thing  that  mattered  .  .  . 

At  length  they  dropped  down  into  a 
kind  of  rocky  hollow,  overhung  with 
bushes,  and  lay  there,  finger  on  trigger, 

[116] 


THE  MARNE 


hardly  breathing.  "Sleep  a  bit  if  you  can 
— you  look  beat,"  whispered  the  friendly 
soldier. 

Sleep! 

Troy's  mind  was  whirling  like  a  ma 
chine  in  a  factory  blazing  with  lights. 
His  thoughts  rushed  back  over  the  miles 
he  had  travelled  since  he  had  caught  up 
the  rifle  by  the  roadside. 

"My  God!*  he  suddenly  thought, 
"What  am  I  doing  here,  anyhow?  I'm 
a  deserter." 

Yes:  that  was  the  name  he  would  go 
by  if  ever  his  story  became  known.  And 
how  should  it  not  become  known?  He 
had  deserted — deserted  not  only  his  job, 
and  his  ambulance,  and  Jacks,  who  might 
come  back  at  any  moment — it  was  a  dead 
certainty  to  him  now  that  Jacks  would 
come  back — but  also  (incredible  per 
fidy!)  the  poor  worn-out  old  couple  and 
the  wounded  territorial  who  had  crawled 
into  the  ambulance.  He,  Troy  Belknap, 


THE  MARNE 


United  States  Army  Ambulance  driver, 
and  sworn  servant  of  France,  had  de 
serted  three  sick  and  helpless  people  who, 
if  things  continued  to  go  badly,  would 
almost  certainly  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  Germans.  .  .  It  was  too  horrible  to 
think  of — and  so,  after  a  minute  or  two, 
he  ceased  to  think  of  it — at  least  with 
the  surface  of  his  mind. 

"If  it's  a  court-martial  it's  a  court- 
martial,"  he  reflected;  and  began  to 
stretch  his  ears  again  for  the  sound  of 
men  slipping  up  in  the  darkness  through 
the  bushes  .  .  . 

But  he  was  really  horribly  tired,  and 
in  the  midst  of  the  tension  the  blaze  of 
lights  in  his  head  went  out,  and  he  fell 
into  a  half-conscious  doze.  When  he 
started  into  full  consciousness  again  the 
men  were  stirring,  and  he  became  aware 
that  the  sergeant  was  calling  for  volun 
teers. 

Volunteers  for  what?  He  didn't  know 

[118] 


THE  MARNE 


and  was  afraid  to  ask.  But  it  became 
clear  to  him  that  the  one  chance  to  wash 
his  guilt  away  (was  that  funny  old- 
fashioned  phrase  a  quotation,  and  where 
did  it  come, from?)  was  to  offer  himself 
for  the  job,  whatever  it  might  be. 

The  decision  once  taken,  he  became  in 
stantly  calm,  happy  and  alert.  He  ob 
served  the  gesture  made  by  the  other 
volunteers  and  imitated  it.  It  was  too 
dark  for  the  sergeant  to  distinguish  one 
man  from  another,  and  without  com 
ment  he  let  Troy  fall  into  the  line  of 
men  who  were  creeping  up  out  of  the 
hollow.  He  understood  now  that  they 
were  being  sent  out  on  a  scouting  expedi 
tion. 

The  awful  cannonade  had  ceased,  and 
as  they  crawled  along  single  file  between 
the  trees  the  before-dawn  twitter  of  birds 
rained  down  on  them  like  dew,  and  the 
woods  smelt  like  the  woods  at  home. 

They  came  to  the  end  of  the  trees,  and 

[119] 


THE  MARNE 


guessed  that  the  dark  wavering  wall 
ahead  was  the  edge  of  a  wheat-field. 
Someone  whispered  that  the  Marne  was 
just  beyond  the  wheat-field,  and  that  the 
red  flares  they  saw  must  be  over  Chateau- 
Thierry. 

The  momentary  stillness  laid  a  reas 
suring  touch  on  Troy's  nerves,  and  he 
slipped  along  adroitly  at  the  tail  of  the 
line,  alert  but  cool.  Far  off  the  red 
flares  still  flecked  the  darkness,  but  they 
did  not  frighten  him.  He  said  to  him 
self:  "People  are  always  afraid  in  their 
first  battle.  I'm  not  the  least  afraid,  so 
I  suppose  this  is  not  a  battle  .  .  ."  and 
at  the  same  moment  there  was  a  small 
shrieking  explosion,  followed  by  a  hor 
rible  rattle  of  projectiles  that  seemed  to 
spring  up  out  of  the  wheat  at  their  feet. 

The  men  dropped  on  their  bellies  and 
crawled  away  from  it,  and  Troy  crawled 
after,  sweating  with  fear.  He  had  not 
looked  back,  but  he  knew  that  some  of 
the  men  must  be  lying  where  they  had 

[120] 


THE  MARNE 


dropped,  and  suddenly  it  occurred  to  him 
that  it  was  his  business  to  go  back  and 
see  ... 

Was  it,  though?  Or  would  that  be 
disobeying  orders  again? 

He  did  not  stop  to  consider.  The  Am 
bulance  driver's  instinct  was  uppermost, 
and  he  turned  and  crawled  back,  straight 
back  to  the  place  ^that  the  horrible  ex 
plosion  had  come  from.  The  firing  had 
stopped,  but  in  the  thin  darkness  he  saw 
a  body  lying  in  front  of  him  in  the  flat 
tened  wheat.  He  looked  back,  and  saw 
that  the  sergeant  and  the  rest  of  the  men 
were  disappearing  at  the  right;  then  he 
ramped  forward  again,  forward  and  for 
ward,  till  he  touched  the  arm  of  the  mo 
tionless  man  and  whispered:  "Hi,  kid, 
it's  me 

He  tried  to  rouse  the  wounded  man, 
to  pull  him  forward,  to  tow  him  like  a 
barge  along  the  beaten  path  in  the  wheat. 
But  the  man  groaned  and  resisted.  He 
was  evidently  in  great  pain,  and  Troy, 

[121] 


THE  MARNE 


whom  a  year's  experience  in  ambulance 
work  had  enlightened,  understood  that 
he  must  be  either  carried  away  or  left 
where  he  was. 

To  carry  him  it  was  necessary  to  stand 
up,  and  the  night  was  growing  trans 
parent,  and  the  wheat  was  not  more  than 
waist  high. 

Troy  raised  his  head  an  inch  or  two 
and  looked  about  him.  In  the  east,  be 
yond  the  wheat,  a  pallor  was  creeping 
upward,  drowning  the  last  stars.  Any 
one  standing  up  would  be  distinctly 
visible  against  that  pallor.  With  a  sense 
of  horror  and  reluctance  and  dismay  he 
lifted  the  wounded  man  and  stood  up. 
As  he  did  so  he  felt  a  small  tap  on  his 
back,  between  the  shoulders,  as  if  some 
one  had  touched  him  from  behind.  He 
half  turned  to  see  who  it  was,  and 
doubled  up,  slipping  down  with  the 
wounded  soldier  in  his  arms  .  .  . 

[122] 


CHAPTER  XII 

TROY,  burning  with  fever,  lay  on  a 
hospital  bed. 

He  was  not  very  clear  where  the  hos 
pital  was,  or  how  he  had  got  there;  and 
he  did  not  greatly  care.  All  that  was 
left  of  clearness  in  his  brain  was  filled 
with  the  bitter  sense  of  his  failure.  He 
had  abandoned  his  job  to  plunge  into 
battle,  and  before  he  had  seen  a  German 
or  fired  a  shot  he  found  himself  ig- 
nominiously  laid  by  the  heels  in  a  strange 
place  full  of  benevolent  looking  hypo 
crites  whose  least  touch  hurt  him  a  mil 
lion  times  more  than  the  German  bullet. 

It  was  all  a  stupid  agitating  muddle, 
in  the  midst  of  which  he  tried  in  vain  to 
discover  what  had  become  of  Jacks,  what 
had  happened  to  the  ambulance,  and 
whether  the  old  people  and  the  wounded 


THE  MARNE 


territorial  had  been  heard  of.  He  in 
sisted  particularly  on  the  latter  point  to 
the  cruel  shaved  faces  that  were  always 
stooping  over  him,  but  they  seemed  un 
able  to  give  him  a  clear  answer — or  else 
their  cruelty  prompted  them  to  withhold 
what  they  knew.  He  groaned  and  tossed 
and  got  no  comfort,  till  suddenly,  open 
ing  his  eyes,  he  found  Jacks  sitting  by 
his  bed. 

He  poured  out  his  story  to  Jacks  in 
floods  and  torrents :  there  was  no  time  to 
listen  to  what  his  friend  had  to  say.  He 
went  in  and  out  of  the  whole  business 
with  him,  explaining,  arguing,  and  an 
swering  his  own  arguments.  Jacks, 
passive  and  bewildered,  sat  by  the  bed 
and  murmured  "All  right — all  right"  at 
intervals.  Then  he  too  disappeared, 
giving  way  to  other  unknown  faces. 

The  third  night  (someone  said  it  was 
the  third  night)  the  fever  dropped  a 
little.  Troy  felt  more  quiet,  and  Jacks, 


THE  MARNE 


who  had  turned  up  again,  sat  beside  him, 
and  told  him  all  the  things  he  had  not 
been  able  to  listen  to  the  first  day — all 
the  great  things  in  which  he  had  played 
an  unconscious  part. 

"Battle  of  the  Marne  ?  Sure  you  were 
in  it — in  it  up  to  the  hilt,  you  lucky  kid!" 

And  what  a  battle  it  had  been!  The 
Americans  had  taken  Vaux  and  driven 
the  Germans  back  across  the  bridge  at 
Chateau-Thierry,  the  French  were  press 
ing  hard  on  their  left  flank,  the  advance 
on  Paris  had  been  checked — and  the  poor 
old  couple  and  the  territorial  in  the  am 
bulance  had  not  fallen  into  enemy  hands, 
but  had  been  discovered  by  Jacks  where 
Troy  had  left  them,  and  hurried  off  to 
places  of  safety  the  same  night  .  .  . 

As  Troy  lay  and  listened,  tears  of 
weakness  and  joy  ran  down  his  face. 
The  Germans  were  back  across  the 
Marne,  and  he  had  really  been  in  the 
action  that  had  sent  them  there !  The 


THE  MARNE 


road  to  Paris  was  barred — and  Sophy 
Wicks  was  somewhere  in  France.  .  .  He 
felt  as  light  as  a  feather,  and  if  it  had 
not  been  for  his  deathly  weakness  he 
would  have  jumped  out  of  bed  and  in 
sisted  on  rejoining  the  ambulance.  But 
as  it  was  he  could  only  lie  flat  and  feebly 
return  Jacks'  grin  .  .  . 

There  was  just  one  thing  he  had  not 
told  Jacks:  a  little  thing  that  Jacks 
would  not  have  understood.  Out  in  the 
wheat,  when  he  had  felt  that  tap  on  the 
shoulder,  he  had  turned  round  quickly, 
thinking  a  friend  had  touched  him.  At 
the  same  instant  he  had  stumbled  and 
fallen,  and  his  eyes  had  grown  dark;  but 
through  the  darkness  he  still  felt  con 
fusedly  that  a  friend  was  near,  if  only  he 
could  lift  his  lids  and  look  .  .  . 

He  did  lift  them  at  last;  and  there,  in 
the  dawn,  he  saw  a  French  soldier,  hag 
gard  and  battle-worn,  looking  down  at 
him.  The  soldier  wore  the  uniform  of 

[126] 


THE  MARNE 


the  chasseurs  a  pied,  and  his  face  was  the 
'face  of  Paul  Gantier,  bending  low  and 
whispering:  "Mon  petit — mon  pauvre 
petit  gars.  .  . "  Troy  heard  the  words 
distinctly,  he  knew  the  voice  as  well  as  he 
knew  his  mother's.  His  eyes  shut  again, 
but  he  felt  Gander's  arms  under  his  body, 
felt  himself  lifted,  lifted,  till  he  seemed 
to  float  in  the  arms  of  his  friend  .  .  . 

He  said  nothing  of  that  to  Jacks  or 
anyone,  and  now  that  the  fever  had 
dropped  he  was  glad  he  had  held  his 
tongue.  Someone  told  him  that  a  ser 
geant  of  the  chasseurs  a  pied  had  found 
him  and  brought  him  in  to  the  nearest 
poste  de  secours,  where  Jacks,  provi 
dentially,  had  run  across  him  and  carried 
him  back  to  the  base.  They  told  him 
that  his  rescue  had  been  wonderful,  but 
that  nobody  knew  what  the  sergeant's 
name  was,  or  where  he  had  gone  to  ... 

("If  ever  a  man  ought  to  have  had  the 

[ia7] 


THE  MARNE 


Croix  de  Guerre !"  one  of  the  nurses 

interjected  emotionally.) 

Troy  listened  and  shut  his  lips.  It 
was  really  none  of  his  business  to  tell 
these  people  where  the  sergeant  had  gone 
to :  but  he  smiled  a  little  when  the  doctor 
said:  "Chances  are  a  man  like  that  hasn't 
got  much  use  for  decorations  ..." 

And  then  the  emotional  nurse  added: 
"Well,  you  must  just  devote  the  rest  of 
your  life  to  trying  to  find  him." 

Ah,  yes,  he  would  do  that,  Troy  swore 
— he  would  do  it  on  the  battle-fields  of 
France. 


(END.) 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


CEIVED 


MAPS  Q 


P  '!  ?  199R 


rec'd  circ.  MAR  i  o 


^CIRCULATION  DFPT 


41989 


Dl  19 
"&€4V- 


OUT  1 


LD  21A-40m-ll 
(E1602slO)47 


General  Library 
University  of  California 


YA  08267 
U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


389432 


UNIVERSrnfoF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY-*' 


I 


